George Soros says BlackRock’s China investments ‘tragic mistake’

BlackRock is the world’s largest money manager; last month it began offering investment products to Chinese individuals.

George Soros criticized BlackRock Inc.’s China push as a risk to clients’ money and U.S. security interests, in the billionaire financier and philanthropist’s latest broadside against investment in the world’s second-largest economy. “Pouring billions of dollars into China now is a tragic mistake,” Soros wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “It is likely to lose money for BlackRock’s clients and, more important, will damage the national security interests of the U.S. and other democracies.” BlackRock is leading a global foray into China’s asset management industry. The world’s largest money manager last month began offering investment products to Chinese individuals, two months after winning approval to become the nation’s first wholly foreign-owned mutual fund firm.