JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Wednesday that his bank would pull out of China if the U.S. government ordered him to.
“If the US government makes me leave China, I will leave China,” Dimon said at the DealBook Summit during a discussion about a possible future conflict over Taiwan. “If there is a war in Taiwan, you would take all bets off.”
JPMorgan, which says on its website it has been active in China for a century, does investment and corporate banking, payments and assets there. Rising geopolitical tensions – fueled by wars in Ukraine and Israel – have raised concerns that China could move to annex Taiwan.
“Nobody thinks it’s going to happen; it can happen,” Dimon said of war over Taiwan. “That would be really bad for the world and really bad for China.”
Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jaime Dimon speaks during the New York Times’ annual DealBook summit on November 29, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Dimon called relations with China, the world’s second-largest economy, “a very complicated subject” and said engagement with China and the US government was necessary.
“I think it’s good for a U.S. bank to be there to help multinationals worldwide and China with its own development if it makes sense,” Dimon said. “If for some reason the US government says ‘No, can’t do that anymore,’ then so be it.”
Dimon also pointed out that while the United States maintains good relations with Mexico and Canada, China has “done a pretty good job of pissing off all the people around them,” and the country has “terrible demographics.”
The bank advises Chinese clients including fast fashion retailer Shein and Tiktok parent company ByteDance.
Dimon addressed security concerns related to TikTok, saying, “You can imagine the due diligence and work we do to find out the truth about those things.”
“If some of those people are doing things that we think are really bad, we wouldn’t bankroll them,” he said.