President Biden is likely to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in person in November — the first such meeting since Biden took office, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Biden’s family has had extensive and possibly continuing business relationships with companies linked to China’s government and he faces pressure from Republicans to take a more aggressive posture toward Xi, including on fentanyl exports and transparency about the origins of COVID-19.
The visit reportedly will occur somewhere in Southeast Asia. Xi is expected to attend international summits that month in Bangkok, Thailand, and Bali, Indonesia.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Xi-Biden sit-down would follow tensions this month over Taiwan’s de facto independence as Beijing fumed over a visit to the island by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Chinese saber-rattling reportedly prompted Biden to pause consideration of repealing Trump-era tariffs.
In China, Joe Biden allegedly was involved with his son’s dealings with CEFC China Energy, which the Washington Post reported paid Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden $4.8 million in 2017 and 2018.
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski says that he spoke with Joe Biden in May 2017 about the CEFC deal and a May 13, 2017, email says that the “big guy” would get a 10% stake in a new corporate entity. Bobulinski and that email’s author, James Gilliar, identified the president as the “big guy.”
Also in China, Hunter Biden cofounded an investment firm called BHR Partners in 2013 less than two weeks after flying with his father to Beijing aboard Air Force Two. Hunter introduced Joe Biden to BHR CEO Jonathan Li in the lobby of a hotel in China’s capital.
BHR Partners is controlled in part by Chinese state-owned entities. Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said less than a week after President Biden’s November summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping that the first son divested his 10% stake in BHR Partners, but Hunter Biden and the White House provided no further details and online business records indicate that Hunter Biden still owns the 10% stake.