Thursday, 28 Mar 2024

Stopping business with China is unrealistic for US: Bloomberg

OHIO • Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said it is unrealistic to think the United States can stop doing business with China but that as president he could pressure Beijing to halt human rights abuses and become a more open society.

In a CNN town hall session on Wednesday, Mr Bloomberg declined to call Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator, saying “it’s a question of what is a dictator”, and that while China is not a democracy, leaders are still chosen by a small group of people and are replaced periodically.

“I think the question is, if your definition is a democracy where people vote and pick their leaders, that is not what China is about,” he said. “They like their system, and I think they’re wrong, I think they’d be better off opening things up.”

It was his first CNN town hall session, an event that has become routine for many of his Democratic rivals. He has mostly appeared in controlled campaign events and through a flood of advertisements across the country, with over half-a-billion dollars in spending.

Mr Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg News’ parent company.

The format allowed him to touch on topics he has focused on since leaving the New York mayor’s office in 2013, such as gun control and climate change – something he said he found difficult to do in Tuesday’s raucous presidential debate. But he struggled to demonstrate the personal touch essential to many successful presidential campaigns.

He took a question from a man whose wife was killed in the 2015 church shooting in Charleston committed by a white supremacist, answering his question about steps to resolve gun violence without expressing sympathy for the family.

Mr Bloomberg was asked by a potential voter whether he put human rights or the US economy first.

He said that although China’s record on human rights is “a disgrace”, the two economies are linked and China must be a partner in addressing climate change. But pressure can be brought on human rights and issues such as the theft of intellectual property, he said.

“You’re not going to war and try to force them,” he said. “We should get used to the fact that China is going to keep growing and become stronger and we have to figure out a way to work with them while protecting our industries and protecting our country militarily.”

He also said he has contacted the women, or their lawyers, involved in three non-disclosure agreements he has agreed to lift, allowing them to speak publicly. These are related to offensive comments they said he made at his company.

He also reiterated that if he becomes president, he will put his firm into a blind trust and sell it “because I don’t want the conflicts that Donald Trump has”.

BLOOMBERG

Source: Read Full Article

Related Posts