The Trump administration is reportedly considering a ban on all members of the Chinese Communist Party and their families from moving to the United States. That could have major implications for China ‘s wealthiest business leaders and entrepreneurs.
The draft order — whose existence was first reported by The New York Times, citing four anonymous sources — has not been made public, and the Times reported that President Donald Trump could still reject it. Reuters, citing an unnamed source, confirmed details of the Times report.
These limits will greatly impact the more than 90 million party members and their families.
They have many leaders of the corporate elite in China, who will not be able to come to America to do business. Founder of Alibaba (BABA) Jack Ma, Founder of the Dalian Wanda Group Wang Jianlin and Founder of the BYD Wang Chuanfu are all Communist Party members. According to Bloomberg, Ma, who has a net worth of almost $50 billion, was famously outed as a Communist by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling party, almost two years ago.
Dalian Wanda owns the AMC (AMC), the world’s largest cinema theater chain. BYD is one of China’s leading electric carmakers, and boasts among its major shareholders Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA).”China’s rich and powerful are nearly all members of the party,” said Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the China Studies Center at the Hong Kong University of China, adding that people with money or influence are more likely to join.
If an executive believes in the ideology of the party or not, Lam said being a member has much practical application in China. He suggested party membership could help people get bank loans and do business with state-run companies.
A travel ban could snare many more top chief executives in China, depending on how large the net is spread. Executives often have links to the government, even though they have not been identified as members of the card-carrying party. For example, Tencent (TCEHY) founder Pony Ma, and Xiaomi chairman Lei Jun are both members of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the highest legislative body in the country. And Robin Li, founder of Baidu (BIDU), is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a leading political advisory body.
More than 30 million private enterprises exist in China. Of the 8,000 business people who responded to a government survey published last year, more than half said they were members of the Communist Party of China. A quarter of the total respondents were NPC members, while approximately one third were CPPCC members.
Working with the Communist Party is common also for private enterprises. For example, last year China sent officials to Alibaba, automaker Geely (GELYF) and dozens of other firms as part of a plan to boost high-tech development. Meanwhile, TikTok owner ByteDance has its own Committee of the Communist Party, led by Zhang Fuping, according to state media reports.
A travel ban to the United States would probably cause serious problems for these executives and their companies. For example, several Chinese firms — including Alibaba and Baidu — are listed on US stock exchanges. On Friday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said a travel ban would be “very absurd.” Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said the possible ban report had “caused a very big reaction among the Chinese people.”
“If this report is true, then the U.S. is openly opposed to 1.4 billion Chinese people,” Hua said in a briefing. Meanwhile, some experts are doubtful about how a ban like this would work in practice.”It would ban far too many people from coming to the United States,” said David Zweig, professor emeritus and director of the Chinese Transnational Relations Center at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong. “And what is the US going to do when people lie?”
Zweig pointed out that many senior academics are also members of the Communist Party of China, and the move may have significant implications for Chinese students studying in the United States. However, Lam said he thought the movie was possibly meant simply to “send a warning,” even if the U.S. sacrifices some business interests. He pointed out that tensions continue to grow between the United States, and that a “decoupling” between the two countries is accelerating.
