Apparently it’s been known for years that Jim was one of the sleaziest lobbyists in D.C.
worth a re-read today:
4 May 2109: The Intercept: Chinese Fund Backed By Hunter Biden Invested in Major Chinese Surveillance Firm
The flurry of media reports about private investment in China’s increasingly sprawling surveillance state left out a prominent investor: Hunter Biden.
by Lee Fang
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch released a troubling report, which it has since walked back, about a phone application made by the Chinese government. The app provides law enforcement with easy, daily access to data detailing the religious activity, blood type, and even the amount of electricity used by ethnic minority Muslims living in the western province of Xinjiang.
The app relies heavily on facial recognition software supplied by Face++, a division of the Chinese startup Megvii, a relationship that sparked questions in the press for Megvii investors. One of the most prominent of these investors is Alibaba Group Holding, which was co-founded by Jack Ma, the wealthiest Chinese billionaire and an icon for the country’s image of entrepreneurship...
The flurry of media reports this week about Face++, Ma, and the role of the private sector in building China’s increasingly sprawling surveillance state, however, left out another prominent investor in the company: Hunter Biden.
As The Intercept has previously reported, the HNA Group has made unusually extensive efforts to cultivate U.S. officials. The company floated an offer to buy out the hedge fund owned by former White House official Anthony Scaramucci; retained the legal services of Gary Locke, the former U.S. ambassador to China, shortly before his confirmation; and provided financing to a private-equity firm backed by Jeb Bush. HNA Group, notably, also courted Bill Clinton, touting meetings with the former president at philanthropy events hosted by the company.
The Bank of China, one of the largest banks in the country, has also made overtures to U.S. political elites. Shortly after the 2016 presidential election, the company added Angela Chao, the sister of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and sister-in-law of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to its board of directors...
In 2014, the partners began setting up operations in China. The “RS” in Bohai Harvest RST stands for Rosemont Seneca, and the “T” stands for Thornton Group. The latter group is an international consulting firm based in Massachusetts that was founded by James Bulger, the son of the longtime Kerry ally and former Massachusetts state Senate President ***William Bulger.
The company, according to the Wall Street Journal, planned to raise $1.5 billion, taking advantage of Shanghai’s free enterprise zone to convert yuan to dollars to be invested in foreign companies. Business registration filings in China list Hunter Biden, Schwerin, and James Bulger as key officials at Bohai Harvest...
Last year, author Peter Schweizer criticized the timing of Bohai Harvest’s launch, claiming that the exclusive deal coincided with negotiations between then-Vice President Joe Biden and the Chinese government.
On Wednesday, the New York Times raised similar concerns with the involvement of Hunter Biden in Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, which added the vice president’s son to the company board in 2014...
For his part, Joe Biden has long served as a friendly voice for U.S.-China relations, even before his son’s investment ventures. The elder Biden helped lead Democratic support to passing permanent national trade relations with China.
In 2000 remarks in support of the vote, Biden argued that he did not “see the collapse of the American manufacturing economy” as a danger from opening up further trade with China, claiming that an economy “about the size of the Netherlands” could not become “our major economic competitor.” Opening China to further trade, Biden predicted, would create “a path toward ever greater political and economic freedom” for the country’s citizens.
Update: July 1, 2020
This story has been updated to note that Human Rights Watch has subsequently issued a correction related to its report on Megvii. The headline has been updated accordingly.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/03/biden-son-china-business/
Wikipedia: ***William Bulger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bulger
“Apparently it’s been known for years that Jim was one of the sleaziest lobbyists in D.C.”
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