JPMorgan’s Dimon says US, China need to have ‘real engagement’

HONG KONG (Reuters): JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday (May 31) said the United States and China need to have “real engagement”, during his first visit to China since his 2021 comment about the bank outlasting China’s ruling party sparked uproar.

“You’re not going to fix these things if you are just sitting across the Pacific yelling at each other. So I’m hoping we have real engagement,” Dimon said, answering a question about Sino-US decoupling at the three-day JPMorgan Global China Summit in Shanghai.

Dimon said the countries’ disputes over security and free and fair trade issues are all “resolvable”, and that he favours East-West “derisking” rather than decoupling as tension between the two superpowers ratchets up.

The US bank has in recent years boosted its China presence with newly acquired licences or increased stakes spanning securities, funds and futures.

Dimon is on his first visit to China since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2021, he joked that JPMorgan will outlast China’s Communist Party, sparking outrage in China and prompting him to express regret.