Billionaire investor says he ‘sloppily answered’ question about human rights abuses in China

The founder of the world’s largest hedge fund said on Sunday that he wanted to “clarify” comments he made about human rights abuses in China in which he compared Beijing to a “strict parent” when asked about the disappearance of dissidents. 

“Now that things have calmed down I want to clarify what I meant when I sloppily answered a question about China … that created a misunderstanding of my views,” Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, said in a LinkedIn post on Sunday. 

“I assure you that I didn’t mean to convey that human rights aren’t important because I certainly believe they are and I didn’t mean to convey that the US and China deal with these issues similarly because they certainly don’t,” he added.

The billionaire investor explained that his response during a CNBC interview was meant to explain “what a Chinese leader told me about how they think about governing – about how Confucianism is based on the family and that extends into their governance, which is a more autocratic approach that is like a strict parent.”

“I was not expressing my own opinion or endorsing that approach,” Dalio noted, adding that he was “sorry my answer lacked that nuance and caused confusion.”  

Last week, the Biden administration said it would work with the European Union (EU) to create a unified strategy to deal with China’s “concerning” behavior.

Specifically, the U.S. and EU intended to confront China on issues such as human rights, multilateralism, disinformation and security.