The son of President Joe Biden is back in the news as senators look into how close he is to communist China. A former US intelligence officer says that the real problem is much bigger than why Biden let his troubled son do business with a hostile power. China isn’t just interested in Hunter Biden; they want to learn as much as they can about every American they meet.
Hunter’s Worrying Contacts
For years, people have been worried about how Hunter Biden does business. Even though the president’s son doesn’t seem to have many obvious skills, he has held a number of well-paid jobs with foreign companies. There is a lingering suspicion that these companies didn’t pay Hunter for his good judgment and management skills, but for access to his father. The latest information from the investigation into his contacts with China won’t make those worries go away.
Investigators who work for Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, say that Hunter’s business contacts in China are linked to that country’s military intelligence organization. For example, Ye Jianming started CEFC China Energy, which paid $4.8 million to companies controlled by Hunter in 2017. Ye Jianming is known for hiring people who used to work for the communist party, and the Beijing regime pays for his business. He also has ties to the intelligence agency of the People’s Liberation Army, and he has done business with the Biden family since 2015. Hunter’s famous laptop held audio files of him calling Ye a “business partner” and admitting that he knew one of Ye’s friends was a Chinese spy chief.
Industrial Scale Espionage
People like Ye Jianming probably don’t just want to do business when they try to make deals with Americans. Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and investigator Tony Shaffer says, “Everything about Chinese culture is used to get information about the US.” This includes business ties.
Businesses are also a good way to hide money, and intelligence officers often use money to get people to work for them. Potential agents can be lured in by money, and once they’ve taken it, they can be forced to keep quiet about the first payment if they don’t want to lose it. This is called “setting the hook” by people who work with agents, and it looks like CEFC dangled a $4.8 million hook in front of Hunter Biden.
Shaffer says that the Hunter Biden case is just the tip of the iceberg. He said that if you talk to a Chinese national, you should assume that the Chinese government will find out. The former spy said that Chinese nationals in the US don’t mind using their own wives and children to gather information. If those amateur spies find someone interesting, it’s likely they’ll give the person’s name to professional intelligence officers, who will then start the process of hiring them.
How many Americans have this happened to? It’s hard to say because the FBI doesn’t have enough money to look into every interaction with a Chinese citizen. Hunter Biden isn’t the only one who has taken money from Beijing, though.
