President Trump’s phone conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is deeply problematic. But Joe Biden’s decision to allow his son, Hunter, to travel with him on a 2013 trip to China is a problem for the former vice president.
As NBC News reports, Hunter joined his father’s official visit while seeking Chinese investment for a new equity fund he was forming. While NBC says there are no indications Hunter met with Chinese government officials during the visit, it notes that Hunter attended some formal events with his father. NBC also confirms that Hunter’s equity fund received its Chinese license just 10 days after the trip. These things should concern us.
First off, even if Hunter had no one-on-one meetings with Chinese government officials, his presence at formal events was of obvious value to his business interests. China is an authoritarian one-party state. Its leaders view access to business opportunity as a reward to those who are loyal and of value to the state. Simply associating himself with his father would have gained Chinese attention and favor.
Recall that in 2013, the Obama administration was earning Beijing’s favor by choosing to largely ignore China’s imperial island campaign in the South China Sea and its theft of U.S. intellectual property. Indeed, Beijing would have been laughing at the Obama administration as it prioritized an absurd Chinese commitment to try to reduce carbon emissions by 2030.
The basic point is that Beijing would have wanted to maintain these U.S. appeasement policies, which persisted until Trump took office. Seeing Hunter Biden in China with his father doing some personal business, the Chinese would have wanted to ensure Hunter reported back to his father that he had a good visit. Beijing had an interest in opening doors for the vice president’s son.
It is thus highly unlikely that it is coincidence that Hunter’s business license was granted just 10 days after the trip. After all, as soon as he stepped off the plane in Beijing to the moment he left Chinese airspace, Hunter would have been under constant surveillance by the Ministry of State Security. Its officers and agents would have followed his every move, bugged his hotel rooms and electronic devices, and surveilled or interviewed everyone Hunter met during the trip. Even if it it didn’t know prior to the trip, the MSS would have quickly found out about Hunter’s business interests.
As I say, this is bad for Joe Biden.
It is irrelevant that Hunter received a $420,000 financial interest from his Chinese business dealings only in 2017, after the Obama administration had left office. That’s a deferred interest but a significant interest nonetheless. Moreover, was the 2017 payout written into Hunter’s contract in order to avoid media attention towards the vice president? Even if not, why did Joe Biden not check to see what his son was doing in China? When you’re dealing with the Chinese, the lines between business and politics aren’t just blurred, they are often symbiotic. Joe Biden would have known this had he paid even the most basic attention to his intelligence briefings.
Fortunately, we can learn more about Hunter’s trip and who he met with. The records will be there: As the child of a vice president, Hunter would have been under Secret Service protection in 2013. Tempered to protective security requirements, those records should now be released.
