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The
97-year-old told CNBC in an interview alongside Berkshire CEO
and billionaire investor Warren Buffett that the United States
should take a leaf out of China's book and "step in preemptively
to stop speculation".
"I don't want the, all of the Chinese system, but I certainly
would like to have the financial part of it in my own country,"
he said in the interview aired on Tuesday in the United States.
Communist Party-ruled China "did the right thing" by reining in
Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, who
has hardly been seen in public since he criticised regulators in
a speech in October last year.
Chinese regulators pulled the plug on Alibaba affiliate Ant's
IPO and forced it to turn itself into a financial holding firm,
a move expected to curb some of its freewheeling businesses.
Alibaba was also hit with a record $2.75 billion antitrust
penalty as China tightens controls on the booming “platform
economy”.
"Communists did the right thing. They just called in Jack Ma and
say, "You aren't gonna do it, sonny," Munger said.
He also praised China's response to the novel coronavirus. China
imposed strictly enforced lockdowns and widespread curbs on
movement, measures that would be less acceptable to Americans.
"They simply shut down the country for six weeks. And that
turned out to be exactly the right thing to do," Munger said.
Buffett said the pandemic had hurt smaller companies the most.
"I don't know how many but many hundreds of thousands or
millions of small businesses have been hurt in a terrible way,
but most of the big, big companies have overwhelmingly done
fine, unless they happen to be in cruise lines or, you know, or
hotels or something," he said.
(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath and Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru;
Editing by Amy Caren Daniel and Stephen Coates)
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