Hunter Biden said he would be “happy” to put business partners in touch with a top CCP official.
Hunter said he was “happy” to do what was asked, but he couldn’t remember the names of the men who sat next to him at the dinner.
“Happy to do this,” he wrote, “but I don’t have Mr. Tung’s email address. He may have been sitting next to me, but I don’t remember the names of the two men to my left and right. No matter what, I would suggest that the team write me an email in both Mandarin and English as soon as possible for my approval.”
“Let me talk to Lin, and J will get back to you as soon as possible,” Bulger said later that day.
It’s not clear whether or not the introduction happened. Fox News Digital asked Hunter’s lawyer, Bulger, Li, Lu, and Tung about the case, but they didn’t answer.
It looks like President Xi’s “welcome dinner” in Beijing, which Bulger mentioned in his first email, took place on the evening of December 4, 2013, after then-Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao met with Joe earlier that day to talk about how to improve relations between the U.S. and China.
A press release from the Chinese Embassy at the time said that Vice President Li held a welcome ceremony for Joe before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square, where the CPPCC’s Tung was also present.
Family members often go with dignitaries to state dinners and other official events. However, Hunter’s statement that he would be “happy” to introduce some of his business associates to Tung months after the dinner to help BHR, in which he had a stake at the time, could raise questions about his morals.
Tung was on the “expected attendees” list for at least two state dinners at the White House during the Obama-Biden administration. He was also on the list for the dinner in Beijing in 2013. On the website for the January 2011 dinner hosted by the Obama administration, Tung’s bio says that he was “Vice Chairman, CPPCC, and former Hong Kong Chief Executive.”
In another press release for the state dinner in September 2015, Tung’s bio says that he is “Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.”
A 2018 report from a U.S. government agency, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, says that the CPPCC is a “central part” of China’s United Front system, which works to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
A report from The Diplomat in 2021 says that the CPPCC is “meant to communicate with non-Communist Party members and get them to work with the CCP to further its interests.” Tung started the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) in 2008, while he was also Vice Chairman of the CPPCC.
The foundation has given money to several American universities, think tanks, and non-profits. In the last few years, it has come under more scrutiny for its work with the CCP’s “united front” system, which is a large group of Chinese Communist Party organizations that work together to influence other countries, according to the Washington Free Beacon. On the website of the foundation, Tung’s name is still listed as the chairman.
In 2015, a year after the emails about Tung, emails obtained by the Free Beacon and confirmed by Fox News Digital show that Hunter and his business partners helped an organization looking to “co-opt” state leaders as part of Beijing’s massive foreign influence operation find an outlet in the United States while his father was vice president.
According to emails, Hunter’s longtime business partner Eric Schwerin, who managed the Biden family’s finances and went to the White House at least 27 times during the Obama administration, set up meetings between the State Legislative Leaders Foundation (SLLF) and top State Department officials between April and July 2015 to help move forward a partnership between SLLF and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
In July 2022, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries was trying to “directly and maliciously influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.”
In April 2015, Bulger sent a long email to Hunter Biden about his recent trip to Beijing as part of the SLLF advance team to prepare for a program there in late 2015, saying that it will “hopefully include over 50 legislative leaders from over 25 different the US States as well as their provincial counterparts in China.”
Bulger said that someone named “Henry” was leading this partnership. This seems to be a reference to Henry Zhao, who, according to his website, is the “Vice president of State Legislative Leaders Foundation (SLLF) in the US and the President of the Asia Branch of SLLF.” The New York Post said before that Zhao is a member of the Chinese Communist Party and the CEO of Harvest Fund Management.
“Henry is leading this project for SLLF in China, so I have been with him for the last week. Henry is a big fan of SLLF, and he thinks this project is very important from a diplomatic point of view for both the US and China “Bulger wrote. “Henry and Steve Lakis, the President of SLLF, asked me if I could help Steve set up a meeting with you the next time Steve is in DC. Steve wanted to know what you thought was the best way to set up an SLLF office in China.”
“In particular, the US and Chinese governments set up a broad framework through their foreign ministries that made it possible for the US-China Governors Forum to be created… SLLF would like to set up a similar sort of arrangement but instead focus on the exchange between the state-level legislative branch of each country rather than the executive branch. Steve Lakis, who is President of the SLLF, wanted to know if he could just meet at your DC office to talk about how to move forward.”
“[Jimmy], Just let me know what you need, and I’ll make it happen. Call me tomorrow, best time is in the morning, “Hunter spoke up.
Fox News Digital has written about Hunter Biden’s strong business ties to China in the past, including a story from earlier this month about how Hunter Biden helped a Rosemont Seneca Partners client and Democratic donor get an event at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., after meeting one of the top officials at the embassy at a luncheon that Vice President Biden hosted in January 2011.
Another report says that Hunter Biden reached out to Bulger and Michael Lin, a Taiwanese-American businessman who has worked with SLLF and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, in May 2014 to help his uncle, John “Jack” Owens, get a business license in China for his telemedicine company, Mediguide.
“There are a lot of time constraints, and the fact that we don’t have one yet has made the company question our credibility a little bit. All of this means that you need a business license, and you need to get one quickly “Owens told Hunter in an email in 2014. “This may seem like a simple task, but I’ve learned that things like getting a Business License can end up taking a lot of time—time that we don’t have.”
“See the next email. My Uncle Jack gave it to me. Is there some way we can speed this up for him? Time is important here, “Hunter sent a letter to Bulger and Lin.
Fox News Digital also published multiple stories about Fran Person’s business partner with ties to the CCP. The person was a top aide to Vice President Biden when he was in office, and Jill Biden, who was Second Lady at the time, said that Person was “like a son to Joe and me.” Person and Bo Zhang sent Hunter Biden and Schwerin several emails. In a May 2016 email, Hunter Biden called Zhang, the Chinese executive who started the Harvest Group and has ties to officials at some of the highest levels of the CCP, his “good friend and business colleague.”
In December 2013, a filing with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) named Zhang as the “Foreign Principal.” This showed that Zhang had a connection to the CCP.
“Although the Foreign Principal is a private person, he has a relationship with a Chinese government official named Liu Guoqiang, who is a Vice Chairman of the Liaoning Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Conservative Conference (CPPCC) in the People’s Republic of China. Because of this relationship, the Foreign Principal wants to ask the Registrant, Patton Boggs LLP, to help the Vice Chairman reach out to Congress on behalf of the Vice Chairman to set up
In another email from 2016, Hunter talked up Zhang’s family business, saying, “Their reputation is perfect, and they have strong relationships with the local, provincial, and national governments, especially in Shenzhen.” In an email sent to Hunter in 2015, the same person said that Zhang is “being trained to take over the dynasty of his family” in China.
