Vice President Joe Biden speaks with Chinese Vice Premier Li Yuanchao before
a lunch in Beijing on Dec. 5, 2013.Andy Wong / Reuters file
STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE---Then VP Biden's trip to China with son Hunter and Hunter's daughter Finnegan in 2013 comes under new scrutiny
SOURCE https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-s-trip-china-son-hunter-2013-comes-under-new-n1061051
Updated Oct. 2, 2019, 7:30 AM EDT / By Josh Lederman
WASHINGTON — At the time, it seemed mildly noteworthy, but not particularly unusual: then-Vice President Joe Biden, traveling to China on an official visit, had brought his son Hunter Biden along.
And when they appeared in public during the 2013 trip, there were all the typical trappings of a mini-family vacation tacked on to a business trip.
With granddaughter Finnegan in tow, the Biden men sipped tea in a Confucian-style teahouse, leafed through books at local shops and treated themselves to mid-afternoon ice cream.
But almost six years later, Biden’s trip to Beijing is coming under new scrutiny amid revelations about President Donald Trump’s efforts to dig up information to corroborate his unproven corruption allegations regarding Biden and his son’s work in Ukraine.
In 2013, I was one of four reporters who traveled aboard Air Force Two with Biden and his son to China, a visit that was sandwiched between stops in Japan and South Korea. When we got on the plane on a bright Sunday afternoon at Joint Base Andrews, the Bidens were already on board, having just flown in from a family Thanksgiving gathering in Nantucket. Biden often took family members and especially his grandchildren on his foreign trips, so their presence didn’t raise eyebrows.
What wasn't known then was that as he accompanied his father to China, Hunter Biden was forming a Chinese private equity fund that associates said at the time was planning to raise big money, including from China. Hunter Biden has acknowledged meeting with Jonathan Li, a Chinese banker and his partner in the fund during the trip, although his spokesman says it was a social visit.
The Chinese business license that brought the new fund into existence was issued by Shanghai authorities 10 days after the trip, with Hunter Biden a member of the board. (The alacrity with which Hunter got a business license might indicate the VP's tax paid office and staff did all the prelims before Hunter was granted the license.)
Hunter Biden’s spokesman, George Mesires, told NBC News that Hunter Biden wasn’t initially an “owner” of the company and has never gotten paid for serving on the board. He said Hunter Biden didn’t acquire an equity interest in the fund until 2017, after his father had left office.(With much ado, Hunter said he quit the board, but official board documents showed he was still a member and had never left.)
And when he did, he put in only about $420,000 — a 10 percent interest. That puts the total capitalization of the fund at the time at about $4.2 million — (not reported by the MSM is that Hunter's stake today is worth $50 million).
Still, Hunter Biden's participation in the trip has raised additional questions about why the elder Biden, while in office, did not do more to ensure his son’s overseas business interests did not intersect with his work as vice president, or at least avoid the perception of potential conflicts of interest.
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden said last month. Then emails popped up thanking Hunter for arranging a meeting between his Chines business partner and his father which took place sub rosa.
Throughout the weeklong China trip, paid for by taxpayers, Hunter Biden seemed to duck in and out, sometimes joining his father at events and red-carpet arrival ceremonies, and at other times following his own itinerary, presumably with his daughter Finnegan. As is customary, the White House did not provide details about what the vice president’s relatives were doing when they were not part of his public events.
Hunter Biden was with his father when Air Force Two touched down in Beijing, sporting a black pea coat as he walked down the stairs behind his daughter and the vice president, who wore his signature aviator sunglasses. A Chinese military honor guard was waiting at the bottom of the staircase, along with top U.S and Chinese diplomats.
For the then-vice president, Obama's point man, there was plenty of serious business to attend to in China. The Obama administration was struggling to prove that it was following through on its Asia “rebalance,” a strategy U.S. officials would only privately acknowledge was intended to counter China’s influence. A crisis in the region over a controversial Chinese air defense zone had thrust Biden into the role of trying to persuade Beijing to back down.
In fact, the biggest tension point between the vice president’s office and journalists accompanying Biden on the trip was over the media’s coverage of his five and a half hours of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Reporters had described Biden as “somber” or “subdued” during a photo-op, suggesting the meeting may not have gone well.
“Candor generates trust,” Biden told Xi during the photo-op. “Trust is the basis on which real change — constructive change — is made.”