Trump Calls for an Investigation Into Biden Family’s Links With the Chinese Regime

President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn as he leaves the White House in Washington on May 20, 2019. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

President Donald Trump said former Vice President Joe Biden should be investigated over allegations that his son’s investment firm received millions of dollars from the Chinese communist regime.

“It’s a disgrace,” Trump said on May 20 in a Fox News interview, after agreeing that the Biden family’s links with the Chinese regime should be investigated.

The allegations, which relate to Biden’s son Hunter Biden, were first raised in the 2018 book “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends” by author Peter Schweizer.

In the book, Schweizer alleges a deal took place in 2013 between the now-defunct investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners—co-founded by Hunter Biden—and the state-run Bank of China.

“In December of 2013, Hunter Biden flies on Air Force 2 to Beijing, China, with his father. His father meets with Chinese officials, he’s very soft on Beijing. The most important thing that happens, happens 10 days after they return,” Schweizer said in a March interview with the Fox News.

“And that’s when Hunter Biden’s small private equity firm called Rosemont Seneca Partners gets a $1 billion private equity deal with the Chinese government, not with a Chinese corporation, with the government.

“And what people need to realize is Hunter Biden has no background in China, he has no background in private equity, the deal he got in the Shanghai free-trade zone, nobody else had. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Blackstone, nobody had this deal.”

At the time, a Biden aide disputed the claims in Schweizer’s book. The aide told The Wall Street Journal, in response: “We aren’t going to engage on politically motivated hit pieces based on a series of demonstrable, factual errors from a Breitbart-affiliated author and his financial backers.”

In May, The Intercept reported that Hunter Biden’s Chinese investment firm, Bohai Harvest RST, invests in a Chinese facial recognition company, Face ++, used by the regime to conduct mass surveillance on millions of Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Trump also criticized the Democratic candidate’s previous statements, dismissing China as a competitor of the United States.

“And then he says China’s not a competitor of ours. China is a massive competitor of ours,” he said.

“They want to take over the world.”

Biden has been rebuked by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle over his comments downplaying the threat posed by the world’s second largest economy.

The president referred to the regime’s ambitious industrial policy “Made in China 2025,” which aims to turn China into a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse by the year 2025, leading in a range of industries including robotics, artificial intelligence, and pharmaceuticals.

The plan has been criticized for being reliant on the theft of technology and trade secrets, primarily targeting the United States and Europe.

“I said to President Xi, that’s very insulting because it’s not going to happen, and it’s very insulting to me,” Trump said.

“And you notice, they don’t use it anymore.”

Since the onset of the U.S.-China trade war last March, the regime has pulled back on references to the policy. State media outlets were instructed not to mention the policy, and references were removed from certain official documents.

Trump also said the Chinese regime’s recent backtracking on commitments made over months of trade negotiations may have be fueled by hopes it could renegotiate a deal with a future Democratic presidential administration.

“If there’s one reason that China ... didn’t make that deal, it’s because they’re hoping that in 16 months Donald Trump will be defeated by any one of those Democrats and they’ll go back to making $500 billion a year,” he said.

“And I understand that. I mean I could really frankly understand that, because it’s not gonna happen with me.”