by Steven Richards
The one-time business partner of Hunter Biden resigned from his role at the head of a major investment fund earlier this month after he was placed under investigation by the Chinese authorities for “personal problems.”
Zhao Xuejun—who Biden and his other business associates referred to as Henry—was the Chairman of Harvest Fund Management, one of the largest asset managers in China. The investigation of Zhao is suspected to stem from Beijing’s wider crackdown on the securities sector.
Zhao is the second Biden business associate to fall under scrutiny from Chinese authorities. Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
Another Biden partner, Ye Jianming, the one-time owner of CEFC China Energy and magnate, also mysteriously disappeared in 2018. The Chinese government has remained silent on his whereabouts, but his name subsequently appeared in trials of senior Chinese Communist Party officials accused of graft, indicating that Ye may have been under investigation for financial crimes or corruption.
Henry Zhao played a prominent role in Hunter Biden and his partners’ efforts to secure Chinese funding for a venture called Burnham. Zhao had also been involved in earlier ventures with Biden, dating to 2013. According to Jason Galanis, one former partner and impeachment inquiry witness, the Burnham venture was designed to become a platform that married a reputable financial brand with the Biden political name.
“Our objective was to build a diversified private equity platform, which would be anchored by a globally known Wall Street brand together with a globally known political name,” he said in his opening statement during his late February testimony to Congress
Galanis delivered testimony and provided evidence to Congress as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Hunter’s father. Galanis is currently serving a prison sentence for his role in a tribal bonds fraud scheme that he says was organized to fund the proposed venture. The plans never fully materialized after another long-time Biden partner, Devon Archer, was caught up in the fraud scheme. Archer himself was convicted of fraud in the tribal bonds scheme.
Henry Zhao was the Chairman of Harvest Fund Management and the company’s Chinese Communist Party general secretary when Hunter Biden first met him around 2011. Biden and Archer were introduced to Zhao and investment firm by another Chinese businessman they colloquially referred to as “the Chairman,” investigative author Peter Schweizer wrote in his book “Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win.”
Zhao also had connections to the upper levels of Chinese intelligence, Schweizer found. He established one of his companies, Harvest Global Investments, with Jia Liqing, the daughter of Jia Chunwang, a former minister of state security.
Shortly after their first meeting, Zhao’s Harvest would partner with Biden and his American and Chinese associates to form an entity known as Bohai Harvest RST. The monetary value of Hunter Biden’s 10 percent stake in the company is not known for certain and Biden’s lawyers disputed that he had received anything from his stake at all.
Zhao, however, would later be called upon to participate in another venture drawn up by Hunter Biden and his American partners, Devon Archer and Jason Galanis. This venture would be called Burnham, a company from which Biden would later try to distance himself because the partners became embroiled in the fraud scheme. However, the partners’ testimony to Congress confirmed that Biden was involved with the Burnham venture.
In late February, impeachment witness Jason Galanis—one of Hunter Biden’s partners in the Burnham venture—told Congress the firm served as place to integrate the “Biden Family Office” with a “large-scale financial company.”
Zhao, Galanis said, was enticed to join this partnership because of the access it would provide to then-Vice President Joe Biden. Emails previously obtained by Just the News and reported in March show Henry Zhao was interested in the partnership because of the “access” the firm could provide him, rather than primary financial concerns.
“The entire value-add of Hunter Biden to our business was his family name and his access to his father, Vice President Joe Biden,” Galanis said in his opening statement to congressional investigators, Just the News previously reported.
In a “Punch List” laying out tasks to be completed circulated among the Burnham group, one employee highlighted Zhao’s motivations in unambiguous terms, summarizing statements Hunter Biden made at a firm meeting.
“[During] yesterday’s meeting Hunter underlined the value of being cautiously conservative in valuation as Henry believes in this first and foremost as an access vehicle with potential for future growth,” one employee said.
Another email to Hunter Biden shows that his proposed involvement in the Burnham deal was important, even essential, to securing Zhao’s participation.
“Henry we believe, is still interested in doing the JV deal if a fair evaluation of Burnham can be agreed to and if YOU as a deal maker are inside Burnham,” one partner wrote to Hunter Biden in October 2014. “Henry holds you in very high regard.”
According to testimony at the fraud trial from Jason Galanis’ father, John, Hunter Biden was crucial in securing a $5 million investment from Zhao’s Harvest for Burnham. In an affidavit written for the trial, John Galanis told the court that “To induce Chinese, [Hunter] Biden sends email to Henry Zhao,” owner of the Chinese entity and says the “investment would be important to his family.”
In his testimony before the Oversight Committee, Jason Galanis made clear there was another reason Zhao was so eager to partner with Hunter Biden and his associates despite having the backing from some of the largest financial firms in China: “Mr. Zhao was interested in this partnership because of the game-changing value add of the Biden family, including Joe Biden, who was to be a member of the Burnham-Harvest team post-vice presidency, providing political access in the United States and around the world,” Galanis said in his opening statement.
The prospect of Joe Biden joining the firm after the end of his vice presidency was attractive for the Chinese businessman. The team planned to emphasize this expectation to Zhao, evidence of which is found in a draft email the team intended for Hunter Biden to send him.
“We are excited by the prospect of being able to work side-by-side with Harvest by way of a globally recognized platform. Please pass along my regards to Henry and let him know that what we discussed during our last lunch together in Beijing still holds true; Rosemont Seneca will be folded into the Burnham Harvest entity as soon as the deal closes thereby giving us all the solid well regarded global platform from which we can conduct our mutual business,” the draft email reads.
“Michael please also remind Henry of our conversation about a board seat for a certain relation of mine. Devon and I golfed with that relation earlier last week and we discussed this very idea again and as always he remains very very keen on the opportunity,” the email continues.
“FYI…example of lean in on Henry from Hunter…this is email drafted for him to send Henry,” Devon Archer wrote to Galanis when he forwarded the draft.
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Steven Richards is a reporter for Just the News.
Background Photo “Harvest Fund China” by Harvest Fund China.
