Hunter Biden owns stake in Chinese company blacklisted by US
The Trump administration has put Hunter Biden’s business dealings in its crosshairs.
One of the 27 Chinese companies the Commerce Department added to its so-called entity list of firms barred from doing business with the U.S. is Megvii Technology, a business in which Hunter Biden owns a stake in through BHR Partners, the cross-border investment arm of China’s Bohai Industrial Investment Fund. Biden owns a 10 percent stake in BHR.
Biden and his father, Vice President Joe Biden -- who's seeking the Democratic Party's nomination to run against Trump -- have came under scrutiny over the younger man's business dealings in the Ukraine. House Democrats are conducting an impeachment inquiry into a whistleblower's claim that the president asked the Ukrainian government to investigate Hunter Biden's work there in the hopes of generating ammunition for his 2020 reelection campaign.
Trump responded to the move by saying he has a responsibility as president to address potential corruption, whether it involves the Bidens or anyone else.
Biden attorney George Mesires did not immediately responded to FOX Business’ request for comment. Megvii, the firm in which BHR invested, designs image recognition and deep-learning software used to track ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang province.
The U.S. government "cannot and will not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities within China,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “This action will ensure that our technologies, fostered in an environment of individual liberty and free enterprise, are not used to repress defenseless minority populations.”
Megvii, which is backed by Chinese tech giant Alibaba, filed in August for an initial public offering in Hong Kong. It’s seeking to raise up to $1 billion in the stock sale, which is expected to occur before the end of the year. It is unclear if Monday’s actions will alter the company’s plans.
Earlier this year, Megvii raised $750 million in a funding round, giving it a valuation of more than $4 billion, according to Reuters. Megvii lost 5.2 billion yuan ($730 million) in the first six months of this year, more than in all of 2018.
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R.N. White contributed to this article.
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