Posted on 11/28/2023 2:09:14 PM PST by DFG
Tech magnate Hock Tan shelled out $40,000 to sit at Xi Jinping’s table during a high-powered dinner in San Francisco as he awaited approval of a $69 billion deal.
The Malaysian-born CEO of Broadcom was one of a number of influential people to dine with the Chinese president, including Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook, BlackRock Inc.’s Larry Fink, and other tech CEOs such as Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon.
Guests packed into the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco on November 20, at one point giving a standing ovation for the Chinese leader.
Tan did not have much to cheer about as for months Chinese regulators had refused to sign off on Broadcam's bid to buy software developer VMware, forcing it to delay the deal's completion date three times after its May 2022 announcement.
But a few days after the dinner, China gave the all-clear, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The acquisition was announced in a blog post on November 22, in which Tan wrote: 'While an important moment for Broadcom, it’s also an exciting milestone for our customers around the world.'
Beijing also gave the go-ahead to Mastercard - whose board of directors chair Merit Janow attended the dinner - to issue yuan-denominated cards in the country.
In October, officials at China’s antitrust regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation, indicated to Broadcom that they were ready to sign off on the deal, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
But Broadcom executives extended the deal deadline after getting indications that it wouldn’t be a simple business decision and that China’s Foreign Ministry would have a say as well.
Nevertheless, Tan secured a spot in a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during Wang's visit to Washington in late October.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Hardly newsworthy.
Pooh headline. The deal was with VMWare, not China.
Pretty astonishing that China’s head gonif actually put his relentless sabotage on pause. All indications are that China’s economy is facing a Japan-like crisis, but worse, since Japanese municipal governments weren’t shareholders with cash sunk into real estate developers. Then there was the relentless pressure on state-owned banks to lend to developers, and the unregulated lenders who bet it all on black.
And that’s not even factoring in China’s monstrous boondoggle, high speed trains, which are likely covering only a fraction of operating costs, never mind the trillions sunk into them.
If Japan, with 2.5x the population density, had to write off its trillion dollar investment, China will likely have to do the same. The same multi-decade drag on growth of this wasted investment beckons.
40,000 dollars to attend that dinner.
Who gets all that money? Was it a political fundraiser?
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