George Soros, the billionaire left-wing philanthropist, named President Xi Jinping’s China the “mortal enemy” of an open society.
Speaking to the New York Times in an interview, Soros said that although he favors free trade, China hasn’t reciprocated the United States otherwise free trade policies, resulting in the on-going trade war between the two countries.
“I consider Xi Jinping’s China the worst threat to an open society,” he said of Xi. Notably, Soros founded a non-profit called The Open Society Foundation, which funds left-wing political campaigns.
His statement echoes one he said at Davos, Switzerland, this year, which prompted China to respond, saying it hopes he can, “correct his attitude.”
“We should recognize it: It’s a different system. It’s totally opposed to ours, diametrically opposed to ours,” Soros added. “I’m not anti-Chinese at all. I’m just anti Xi Jinping.”
Indeed, President Xi’s actions, especially those recently regarding the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, have made him an enemy of Soros.
The pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have been going on for more than five months now, and Xi threatened to grind bodies into “powder” and “smash” the bodies of anyone who attempted to split Hong Kong from China.
“Anyone who attempts to split any region from China will perish, with their bodies smashed and bones ground to powder,” Xi said.
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong began their demonstrations after a proposed extradition bill would let the Chinese government extradite individuals charged with crimes in Hong Kong to mainland China for prosecution.
Hong Kong removed the bill and Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam is reportedly going to be replaced by the Chinese government after the protests turned violent.
“Any external forces that support the splitting of China can only be regarded as delusional by the Chinese people,” Xi added.
Although Soros is staunchly anti-Trump, calling his decision to fulfill his campaign promise to take troops out of the Syria “devastating,” he praised Trump for his toughness against China, calling it his “greatest—and perhaps only—foreign policy accomplishment” in an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal.
“The administration rightly declared Beijing a strategic rival and placed Huawei, China’s multinational telecommunications giant, on the Commerce Department’s so-called ‘entity list’ as a national-security threat,” Soros wrote in the op-ed. “This prevents U.S. companies from doing business with Huawei.”
Huawei is a Chinese tech-company accused of using its products to spy and conduct intellectual property theft.
Soros claims to be proud of the enemies he has, including Trump, saying that those who don’t support his policies are possible dictators or would-be dictators.
