William M. Daley’s Long Ties to China
Before He Was a J.P. Morgan Executive, Daley Worked on China Trade Matters as U.S. Commerce Secretary
William M. Daley is known for his deal-making and political savvy, and for his family’s storied history in Chicago politics. But he also has long experience in China going back to his days in the Clinton administration, when he helped with passage in Congress of a trade-normalization bill related to China’s entry to the World Trade Organization.
While working as Chairman of the Midwest at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in 2006, Mr. Daley met with Gao Hucheng, then a Chinese vice minister of commerce and now the commerce minister, and was believed to support the bank’s hiring of Mr. Gao’s son, according to emails sent by J.P. Morgan bankers. Mr. Daley reported directly to J.P. Morgan Chief Executive James Dimon .
Noting that the son, Gao Jue, “cam to us from Daley,” a J.P. Morgan banker involved in the hiring wrote that “we obviously had to extend him an offer,” according to the emails. Gao Jue’s employment at J.P. Morgan is now a focus of a U.S. government corruption investigation into the bank’s hiring practices, according to people briefed on the probe.
Gao Jue declined to comment through his current employer, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. His father didn’t respond to questions sent to the Ministry of Commerce.
That the bank’s Midwest chairman was meeting with a senior Chinese government official reflects Mr. Daley’s reputation as a power broker and also his history working in China. While U.S. commerce secretary from 1997 to 2000, Mr. Daley was heavily involved in the Clinton administration’s push for permanent normal trade relations with China.
“It is in our best interest if we see a different China into the next century, if we see a more open China,” Mr. Daley said in a 1999 interview on NBC in which he argued for the trade bill. “And a main way we can do that is to do more trade with China.”
Mr. Daley is now head of U.S. operations at Argentière Capital AG, a Swiss hedge fund founded by former J.P. Morgan bankers. In addition to his 2006 meeting with Gao Hucheng, Mr. Daley met the minister again in Beijing in December 2014 following an Aspen Institute event, according to the ministry’s website and a person familiar with the matter.
A well-known Chicago power broker whose brother and father were long-serving mayors of the city, Mr. Daley is best known for his rocky year as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff in 2011 and early 2012. He was seen as a more centrist, mature figure, able to manage the White House’s relations with Republicans in the wake of the 2010 midterm elections, but he became increasingly sidelined. He first relinquished day-to-day management of the West Wing and later resigned from the post.
Mr. Daley worked at J.P. Morgan from 2004 to 2010 as the bank’s Midwest chairman, gaining an additional title as the bank’s head of corporate social responsibility in 2007.
