{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-rubio-blast-mckinsey-lies-push-firm-dissolve-ties-china/", "Hawley, Rubio Blast McKinsey Lies, Push Firm to Dissolve Ties with China", "2024-05-22", "2024", "2024-05", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Josh Hawley", "H001089", "www.hawley.senate.gov", "hawley", "https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter to Bob Sternfels, Global Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company, pressuring the company to dissolve its ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).\n\nSenator Hawley has introduced legislation to prohibit federal agencies from working with consulting firms that hold a contract with the Chinese government, Chinese Communist Party, or subsidiaries, affiliates, or proxies thereof. This bill\u2014the Time to Choose Act\u2014recently passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) with strong bipartisan support. HSGAC Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Senator Rubio have joined the bill as co-sponsors.\n\n\u201cYour company\u2019s inability to come clean about its dealings with the PRC disqualifies it from future work with the United States government,\u201d the Senators wrote. \u201cWe will continue to work to ensure McKinsey does not receive another dollar from the U.S. government until such time as the company owns up to its work on behalf of the Chinese government, severs all ties to the PRC, and commits to patriotic service on behalf of the United States of America.\u201d\n\nIn February, Mr. Sternfels testified under oath that the company had no ties with China. Meanwhile, reporting revealed that the Urban China Initiative \u2013 a McKinsey-helmed project \u2013released a book that directly contributed to China\u2019s Made in China 2025 industrial plan, which accelerated Chinese trade abuses and the deterioration of U.S.-China relations.\n\nRead the full letter here or below.\n\nMay 21, 2024\n\nMr. Bob Sternfels\n\nGlobal Management Partner\n\nMcKinsey & Company\n\n555 California Street\n\nSuite 4700\n\nSan Francisco, CA 94104\n\nDear Mr. Sternfels:\n\nWe write once again regarding McKinsey & Company\u2019s work on behalf of the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC). You have stated, under oath, that \u201cwe do no work, and to the best of my knowledge never have, for the Chinese Communist Party or for the central government in China.\u201d McKinsey spokespeople have stated on other occasions that the company\u2019s client service policy forbids work in the PRC \u201con topics connected to defense, intelligence, justice or police issues.\u201d Public reporting suggests these statements are false. At best, they are lawyerly evasions that fail to grapple with McKinsey\u2019s role in supporting the most powerful adversary of the United States.\n\nThe Financial Times reported earlier this year that a McKinsey-led think tank, the Urban China Initiative, produced a report, which our offices possess, to inform the PRC\u2019s 13th Five-Year Plan and \u201cMade in China 2025\u201d industrial strategy. The report, titled, The Trend and Impact of World Technological Revolution and Industrial Transformation, made scores of recommendations to enhance the military and industrial capabilities of the Chinese government. For example, the report urges the Chinese government to \u201cvigorously promote\u201d military-civil fusion, the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s (PLA) strategy of absorbing commercial research and technology for military purposes. The report also contemplates how the PLA can deploy robots and autonomous systems to \u201cimprove the success rate of combat operations.\u201d It also schemes about how the PRC can strengthen its national champions in advanced sensors to \u201ceventually take control of the industry from foreign firms\u201d\u2014a takeover that is in progress today.\n\nWhile the report was written in the staid language of management consulting, ultimately it was an attempt to help the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dominate the United States and other countries in cutting-edge fields, including cloud computing, the internet of things, big data, mobile internet, robotics, 3D printing, advanced materials, self-driving vehicles, artificial intelligence, nonconventional oil and gas, electric vehicles, energy storage, renewable energy, and human genomic technology. The implications go beyond economic competition. The report notes that technologies such as these \u201cwill have a great impact on future wars and the development of the national defense industry.\u201d\n\nOf course, McKinsey claims that \u201c[t]he Urban China Initiative is not McKinsey, and it did not perform work on McKinsey\u2019s behalf.\u201d Another evasion. McKinsey co-founded the Urban China Initiative. The think tank was based at the same address as McKinsey\u2019s Beijing office. The Urban China Initiative website, which was hosted on a domain owned by McKinsey, directed press inquiries to McKinsey\u2019s Beijing office. McKinsey\u2019s top China hand, Lola Woetzel\u2014who then went by the name \u201cJonathan\u201d\u2014wrote the foreword to the report. The foreword acknowledges that \u201cMcKinsey has compiled the relevant research data and added economic benefit indicators for quantitative screening\u201d for the report. In fact, some passages detail examples in the United States which appear to mirror previous McKinsey reports. Woetzel also hand-delivered the report to the PRC\u2019s second-highest-ranking official at the time, Premier Li Keqiang. McKinsey understandably wishes to disown the Urban China Initiative now that its work for the CCP has come to light, but one has to admit the offspring bears a strong resemblance to the parent.\n\nOf course, the Urban China Initiative is not the only evidence of your firm\u2019s assistance to the CCP. A few of the more notable pieces of evidence include:\n\nMcKinsey has performed work on behalf of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the PRC, which are the industrial arms of the Chinese government and its representatives in overseas trade. The New York Times claims that McKinsey & Company has worked for \u201cat least 22 of the 100 biggest state-owned companies\u201d in the PRC. McKinsey & Company\u2019s SOE clients reportedly include the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), which has constructed military outposts for the PLA in the South China Sea, and the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), a key part of the PLA\u2019s naval logistics.\n\nMcKinsey disclosed a commercial relationship with \u201cthe Chinese government\u201d in a September 2020 court filing.\n\nMcKinsey\u2019s official website for its PRC-related work, since scrubbed from the Internet, claimed that McKinsey has \u201cserved over 20 different central, provincial, and municipal government agencies on a wide range of economic planning, urban redevelopment, and social sector issues.\u201d\n\nThe PRC and its propaganda organs have credited McKinsey for consulting on various initiatives.\n\nMcKinsey held a corporate retreat in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in 2018, where the government of the CCP is committing genocide against the Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.\n\nYour company\u2019s inability to come clean about its dealings with the PRC disqualifies it from future work with the United States government\u2014a government your company has worked to undermine both economically and militarily at the behest of our nation\u2019s primary geopolitical adversary.\n\nWe will continue to work to ensure McKinsey does not receive another dollar from the U.S. government until such time as the company owns up to its work on behalf of the Chinese government, severs all ties to the PRC, and commits to patriotic service on behalf of the United States of America.\n\nSincerely,", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:12:30Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-rubio-blast-mckinsey-lies-push-firm-dissolve-ties-china/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0543582029640675, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}