Gordon Chang: Is McKinsey China's Weapon Against America?

A spat between McKinsey & Company, the world's largest consulting firm, and Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican, highlights a critical American national security vulnerability to China. The consultancy has been caught covering up its work for the "Chinese government." McKinsey denies deception, but the episode suggests it knows its dual representation of the American and Chinese governments does not serve U.S. interests.

"It has come to my attention that McKinsey & Company appears to have lied to me and my staff on multiple occasions regarding McKinsey's relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government," Rubio wrote in a December 16 letter to Bob Sternfels, McKinsey's global management partner, in San Francisco.

Rubio contends that in July 2020, the firm told him that neither the Chinese government nor the Chinese Communist Party was ever a McKinsey client. The senator also reported that McKinsey repeated its assertion to his advisors in a March 2021 Zoom conference call. Yet in a September 2020 court filing relating to Valaris, an offshore drilling company, McKinsey disclosed its work for the "Chinese government."

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