American corporate giants award Chinese president with standing ovation

Pfizer, Apple and BlackRock were among many American mega-corporations Wednesday whose CEOs gave a standing ovation to China President Xi Jinping at a dinner in San Francisco.

Over 300 American executives and officials attended the $40,000-a-plate event at the Hyatt Regency where President Xi delivered remarks promoting investment in China.

“The number one question for us is: are we adversaries or partners?” Xi said in his speech. “China is ready to be a partner and friend of the United States.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook was seated next to China Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was seated with China Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Wang has previously denied China’s persecution of Uyghurs.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was also in attendance, as was Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stanley Deal, Mastercard’s Independent Board Chairwoman Merit Janow, Honeywell Chairman Darius Adamczyk, Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’Day, NIKE CEO Mark Parker, and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, among others.

US officials who attended the dinner included California Governor Gavin Newsom and his wife, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

When he had finished his remarks, Xi was treated to a standing ovation.

The fawning reception accorded the Chinese president by US executives is unsurprising given the close ties that have been forming between America’s corporations and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

BlackRock, for example, which remains the world’s largest investment fund with nearly $10 trillion in wealth, became in 2021 the first foreign investment company to open a fully onshore mutual fund business in China. Last year Consumers’ Research published an ad warning about BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s close ties with the CCP. 

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who is spearheading a large push into Chinese markets, recently praised the CCP as being “aligned” with Pfizer.

“The good thing with the Chinese government is that they are very strategic about their priorities,” Bourla told Fortune. “The best and safest way to be able to have an impact [is] when the efforts of your company and the efforts of the government are all aligned.”

As demand for COVID-19 vaccines fades, Pfizer is looking for a new cash cow. The drugmaker has teamed up with Chinese biotechnology firms to develop and market products within China. The company has partnered with CCP-owned pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm to manufacture Paxlovid domestically and plans to work with other Chinese firms to search for new products.

Apple, a known favorite of the CCP, assembles nearly all its products in China and receives approximately $55 billion a year in revenue in China alone. According to the New York Times, the tech giant’s “Chinese supply chain is so large and complex that Apple has concluded it cannot replicate it elsewhere, according to current and former employees.”  

The Times also reported last year that at least one facility used by Apple is owned by the state and has both the Apple and Chinese flags flying out front. Inside, Apple “stores the emails, photos, documents and other data of its Chinese customers.”  

According to four security experts, Apple’s data security compromises at the behest of the CCP “made it nearly impossible for the company to stop the government from accessing the data.”  

Also at the behest of the CCP, Apple automatically removes apps from iPhones that upset the Chinese government and censors certain “banned topics” such as Tibetan and Taiwana independence and the Dalai Lama. 

The CCP’s reach extends to other corporations like Disney and to Hollywood at large. According to a report from free speech organization PEN America, Hollywood has been collaborating with the CCP for decades.

“Behind closed doors, Disney, and indeed all of Hollywood, have been self-censoring plots, characters, and dialogues for decades to appease the Chinese Communist Party,” says the report.

American filmmakers already “pre-emptively censor” content intended for China release, including removing any references to Taiwan or mentions of minorities. They dutifully back Chinese claims to the South China Sea. Hollywood studios often hire Chinese regulators on set to advise what should be written out of the film to gain access to Chinese audiences.

When PEN America tried interviewing Hollywood producers on the subject, they were found to be extremely tight-lipped for fear of reprisal from China.