Conservative members on the committee questioned Barton over his past business ties with a number of state-owned companies in China while serving as the Managing Director of McKinsey & Company.
Barton’s former employer worked with 22 of China’s 100 largest state-owned companies, including providing consulting services to a company that had a hand in building artificial islands in the South China Sea.
“You were in charge of McKinsey…McKinsey was advising a company that was carrying out the Chinese government policy of building militarized islands in the South China Sea. Is it your position that those islands are in violation of international law?” asked Conservative MP Garnett Genuis.
