Hunter Biden walks to Marine One on the Ellipse outside the White House in Washington on May 22, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
According
to a March 2017 email sent to him from his business associate Eric Schwerin,
Hunter’s private equity firm, Rosemont Seneca Thornton, invested in China-based
Harves Century Group—including a 5 percent stake in Harves Amusement Parks and
ownership in Harves Sports and Entertainment. It is unclear if Hunter still has
any investment in the group.
The
Harves Century Group is based in Shenyang, the capital of northeastern China’s
Liaoning Province, and it has a U.S. affiliate named Harves based in
Washington, D.C. Harves describes itself on its website as
a company that provides “unique experiences that merge sports, entertainment,
art, food, music, and fashion,” and it is a partner of both the NBA and British soccer club Manchester
United.
According
to Fox, the Harves Century Group is backed by state-owned China Development
Bank. The Group’s website names Shao
Jinglan as its chairwoman.
The
group’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were
exposed in another email obtained by Fox. The email shows that Shao is the
mother of Zhang Bo and Zhang’s father-in-law is Liu Cigui, who was the governor of China’s
Hainan Province from 2015 to 2017 and the province’s party secretary from 2017
to 2020.
Liu
Cigui had a long political career in China starting in the 1980s, holding
different party positions in southern China’s Fujian Province. From 2012 to
2017, he was also a member of the Chinese regime’s Central Committee, which is
tasked with choosing CCP members to sit on the 25-member Politburo, the most
powerful decision-making body in China.
Currently,
Liu Cigui is one of the vice directors of the Foreign Affairs Committee at
China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress.
The
second email was sent to Hunter in 2015 from Francis Person, who was a former
aide to Joe Biden when the latter was a senator and U.S. vice president.
In 2016, Person lost in the 2016
House race to then-incumbent Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.).
According
to LinkedIn, Person was
president of Harves from 2015 to 2018, during which he “helped guide the
formation of the Harves [Century] Group headquartered in Washington, D.C.” He
is now the chief chief executive officer of Harves Global Entertainment.
As for
Zhang, he has been chairman and the chief executive officer of Harves since
February 2014, and he describes the company as a “family business,” according
to LinkedIn.
Zhang’s
connection to the Chinese regime was also evident in a 2013 Foreign Agents
Registration Act (FARA) filing (pdf), which was first
reported by Fox. The filing named Zhang as a “foreign principal” for his
relationship with Liu Guoqiang, who was at that time vice chairman of the
Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory body.
Liu Guoqiang
had a long political career in his home province of Liaoning before his
retirement in 2017. He was vice governor of the province from 2001 to 2013. He
was put under party investigation for corruption in July 2020 and subsequently
expelled from the Party in January 2021.
On Jan.
17, China’s state-run media reported that Liu Guoqiang took over 350 million
yuan (about $55 million) in bribery from 2006 to 2020.
Other
emails show that Person and Zheng met with Hunter and Schwerin in Washington
“on multiple occasions,” Fox wrote. In a 2016 email, Hunter called Zhang a
“good friend and business colleague.”
A 2016
email that Fox obtained included Schwerin telling Zhang about the NBA’s
expansion in China.
“If
Liaoning can get one of these stadiums that would be a big help in your efforts
to get more NBA related content in Liaoning,” the email said, according to Fox.
In
November 2020, NBA China, a separate business arm of the NBA, and Harves issued
a joint press release (pdf) announcing their
partnership to develop NBA-themed entertainment centers in China.
“As
part of the partnership, Harves, plans to open six NBA-themed entertainment
centers across China, with the first opening by 2022,” the release states.
According
to Chinese media, the first center is set to open in Suzhou, a city located
near Shanghai.
Hunter
Biden’s business dealings have long been under scrutiny. In September 2020,
a Senate report found
that he began developing associations with Chinese nationals beginning in at
least 2009, the year he co-founded Rosemont Seneca Partners.
According
to the report, these financial connections “accelerated while his father was
vice president and continued after he left office.”
Hunter
Biden’s attorney Chris Clark and Harves didn’t respond to a request for comment
by press time.
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