Hunter Biden holds a stake in a Chinese surveillance company that is under U.S. sanctions for human-rights violations, complicating his father Joe Biden’s campaign promise to crack down on American businesses with financial ties to China’s humanitarian abuses.
Bohai Harvest RST Shanghai Equity, an investment firm that Hunter Biden owns a stake in, initially invested in Megvii, a sanctioned Chinese tech company that specializes in facial recognition software, in 2017, according to the company’s website. The firm holds a nearly 2 percent stake in Megvii through two holding companies, according to a prospectus filed by Megvii as part of its application for a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange last year.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Megvii to its list of sanctioned entities that were “implicated in human-rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.”
Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings have been a point of contention throughout his father’s campaign. Ethics watchdogs have raised questions about Hunter Biden’s lucrative positions with Ukrainian energy company Burisma while Joe Biden was overseeing Ukraine policy as vice president. Hunter Biden has also faced criticism for partnering with the state-run Bank of China to launch a Chinese investment firm. But in this instance, Hunter Biden’s business deals are not just representative of nepotism or a conflict of interest—Joe Biden has promised to go after companies like the one his son is invested in. – READ MORE
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