Biden classified documents: UPenn took cash from China donors tied to Hunter Biden deals and Beijing
Posted For: Layla Godey
Chinese donors linked to Hunter Biden’s business dealings and China’s government steered cash to a university housing a think tank at the center of the Joe Biden classified documents controversy, documents show.
New records unearthed by the conservative watchdog Americans for Public Trust and reviewed by the Washington Examiner reveal the identities of many donors to the University of Pennsylvania — home to the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Some of the donors found on the list also have ties to Hunter Biden’s past deals and the Chinese government.
Attorneys for President Joe Biden found between 25 and 30 classified documents from November 2022 to January 2023 in his old office at the Penn Biden Center. The university has since drawn scrutiny from Congress for pocketing tens of millions of dollars in anonymous Chinese donations.
“On the heels of learning that the Biden family received millions of dollars from foreign entities, this latest revelation raises further questions about the scope of President Biden’s ties to China,” AFT’s Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland told the Washington Examiner. “We now know that the University of Pennsylvania — home to Joe Biden’s namesake think tank — received a massive increase in contributions from China and Hong Kong as he was ramping up his presidential campaign, and has raked in millions from CCP-tied donors since he took office.”
“The president owes the American people answers about the depth of his financial connections to foreign nationals who are undercutting our nation’s security and prosperity.”
Ron Ozio, a spokesman for the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner: “No foreign funds were contributed anonymously, and no foreign funds were directed to the Penn Biden Center.”
The University of Pennsylvania records, which were obtained by AFT through a public records request, show that it received at least $105 million in Chinese donations from mid-2018 to mid-2022, Fox News reported. The records account for donations from foreign entities totaling at least $100,000.
One donor in 2019 was Cathay Fortune, a Shanghai-based private equity firm that gave the university $1 million and was a major investor in the metal and phosphate mining company China Molybdenum Company Limited, now called CMOC Group Limited. Three years earlier, in 2016, China Molybdenum received a helping hand to buy a cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Bohai Harvest RTS (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Company, also known as BHR.
BHR was co-founded in 2013 by Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca Partners investment firm, along with two Chinese asset managers and the Boston-based Thornton Group LLC. Hunter Biden owned a 10% stake in BHR, after leaving its board, through his company Skaneateles LLC, documents show. A lawyer for Hunter Biden claimed to the New York Times in 2021 that he “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.”
“It’s no surprise that Chinese donors who engaged in shady deals with Hunter Biden have donated to the University of Pennsylvania,” House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told the Washington Examiner. “The American people deserve to know whether the Chinese Communist Party, through Chinese companies, influenced potential Biden administration policies with large, anonymous donations to UPenn and the Penn Biden Center.”
The records also show that Gerry Wang, a board member for CMOC, steered $100,000 to the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. Wang, a Canadian citizen who resides in Hong Kong, is also a member of the university’s Asia Campaign Leadership Committee, according to BHR’s website.
From 2018 to 2019, China Merchants Bank gave more than $5.5 million to the University of Pennsylvania, according to records. The bank’s CEO Ma Weihua was a member of the China Entrepreneurial Club, an influential group of foreign business leaders linked to the CCP, at the same time in 2011 that the club met with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to multiple reports.
The newly unearthed University of Pennsylvania records also show that Hopson Education Charitable Funds Limited, which, according to corporate records, operates in Hong Kong, donated $14.5 million to the school from 2019 to 2020. At the same time, billionaire and Chinese real estate mogul Chu Mang Yee reportedly held sole ownership of the organization.
Yee has been a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a body that advises China’s government on policy and is composed of CCP members, according to Hopson’s 2013 annual report and a separate report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent U.S. government agency. Yee also disclosed in 2022 holding a 13% stake in a subsidiary of China General Technology Group, a state-owned conglomerate that is “directly supervised by the central government,” according to Chinese records.
Another donor to the university was the Chinese billionaire Ma Jianrong, who gave $500,000 in 2022 and is CEO of Shenzhou International, a clothing manufacturer, documents show. The New York Times described in a 2017 report how Jianrong was a “member of the Chinese Communist Party.”
News of the donations could result in Republican lawmakers propelling their investigations into Joe Biden and his family’s finances, according to a senior congressional staffer, who told the Washington Examiner that Biden is “compromised when it comes to China.”
There is no evidence in the newly uncovered financial records that President Joe Biden or his family received any of the Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania.
The revelation about the payments comes days after the GOP-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee released a memo based on bank records showing that the Biden family, including Hunter Biden, pocketed $10 million from foreign nationals in Romania and China while Biden was vice president under President Barack Obama.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden and the White House did not reply to requests for comment.
About Post Author
