(Bloomberg) — Former Secretary of State and erstwhile presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum Friday that the world must stand up to Chinese aggression, while calling for a rethink of tariffs against the nation.
How global rivalries will disrupt capital flows and investment will also be addressed by Nicolas Aguzin, chief executive officer of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd., while Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao will address cryptocurrencies and disruptive technologies at the Singapore event.
The final day of the New Economy Forum will also see debates on the U.S. pivot to Asia and how to untangle supply chains. Discussions at the three-day event have touched on the future of health and strategies to tackle climate change, though the risks of a U.S.-China confrontation have been a repeated theme.
U.S. May Pare China Tariffs, Clinton Says (10:15 a.m. H.K.)
Clinton predicted Joe Biden’s administration would remove some punitive tariffs on China, saying she was aware of a review on the issue. But she also said the world can not allow Chinese aggression.
“I know that there’s an ongoing process, as we speak, to try to figure out what would be the best approach with respect to the tariffs,” Clinton said in a virtual appearance at the forum. “And I would predict that there will be some changes. But they will not all disappear, because some of them in this new reality we’re living in may well be continued.”
Clinton said that some tariffs imposed during former President Donald Trump’s administration “hurt” the U.S., particularly those on agricultural goods.
Kerry Wants Coal Ditched Faster (10:00 a.m. H.K.)
U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry said the world needs to speed efforts to ditch coal.
“We have to start where the greatest amount of emissions are if we’re going to win the battle,” Kerry told the forum. “We have to, all of us, be able to put the deals together that will phase out their coal fast.”
Speaking via videolink, Kerry said “coal is the primary culprit today in warming the planet, and in polluting the air and in creating the intensity of storms that comes with the increased moisture that rises from the oceans.”
Rudd Says Biden-Xi Meeting Good for Asia (9:00 a.m. H.K.)
The summit between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping was positive for the West’s partners in Asia, said former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who also critical of how Canberra has handled ties with Beijing.
“The partial stabilization of U.S.-China relations coming out of the recent summit between Xi Jinping and President Biden is on balance good news for the wider region because it takes the geopolitical temperature down a notch or two,” he said in an interview at the forum.
“That actually creates more political space for other bilateral relationships — either with Japan and China, the Republic of Korea and China, Australia and China — to enter I would hope into a less fractious period.”
Bloomberg Plans NEF Event in Panama (8:40 a.m. H.K.)
Bloomberg Media on Friday announced the start of a new series of events, Bloomberg New Economy Gateway, beginning in Panama next year. The inaugural event in Latin America will be the first of Bloomberg’s New Economy series to be held outside Asia.
“We look forward to hosting discussions there with senior business and government leaders that will help shape a more modern global economy,” Michael Bloomberg said in opening remarks on the final day of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore.
Moet Sees 2021 Better Than Pre-Pandemic (8:10 a.m. H.K.)
Lockdowns haven’t been too bad for LVMH’s wines and spirits business, with Moet Hennessy CEO sby the pandemic Philippe Schaus telling Bloomberg Television that this year’s results should beat 2019’s.
Moet raised prices, but not due to supply-chain issues, but as efforts to elevate quality feed into higher costs and higher prices, he said. In many cases, home drinking more than compensated for lockdowns as people opted for higher-end products.
Gates Wants Pandemic Surveillance System (8:00 a.m. H.K.)
Health has also been a big topic, with philanthropist Bill Gates among those addressing how the world can avoid future pandemics.
To better prepare, several thousand experts at the World Health Organization level could be deployed to spot and fight infectious diseases, Gates said. Any surveillance system should be able to function even when governments are dysfunctional or uninterested in sharing information, he said, adding that the world also needs to build capacity to develop vaccines and antivirals faster.
Today’s forum starts at 8:30 a.m. Singapore (7:30 p.m. New York), and speeches and panels are broadcast live. You can sign up for our New Economy Daily newsletter here. The New Economy Forum is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
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