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White House backs China protesters, silent on Xi removal

The Biden administration said Monday that Chinese protesters are right to call for an end to draconian COVID-19 lockdowns — without endorsing widespread calls for Beijing’s authoritarian President Xi Jinping to resign.

Videos published over the weekend showed large protests across China in the most significant challenge to Communist Party rule in more than 30 years — with crowds in the capital Beijing and largest city Shanghai chanting that Xi should step down.

Some footage showed protests descending into near-riots against police, while in pandemic epicenter Wuhan, protesters removed fencing reportedly intended for lockdowns.

“We’ve long said everyone has the right to peacefully protest, here in the United States and around the world. This includes in the PRC,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement, using China’s official acronym.

President Biden’s family has extensive business relationships with Chinese government-linked companies and first son Hunter Biden reportedly still owns a 10% stake in a Chinese state-backed private equity firm.

The White House statement did not specifically fault the actions of Chinese authorities in its statement, but expressed support for the activists’ underlying objection to Xi’s “COVID zero” policies aimed at preventing any transmission of the virus.

Protesters hold up blank papers and chant slogans as they march in Beijing.
Protesters hold up blank papers and chant slogans as they march in Beijing.

Protesters hold up blank papers and chant slogans as they march.
Chinese citizens are protesting the endless COVID lockdowns in their country.

Protesters hold up blank papers and chant slogans as they march.
Protesters call for the removal of President Xi Jinping and his authoritarian government.

Chinese police form a line to stop protesters marching in Beijing.
Chinese police form a line to stop protesters marching in Beijing.

Chinese cities including Wuhan cast off pandemic lockdowns as early as 2020 — much earlier than in the United States and other Western countries — but the rise of the more contagious but less lethal Omicron variant prompted a retrenchment this year.

“We’ve said that zero COVID is not a policy we [are] pursuing here in the United States. And as we’ve said, we think it’s going to be very difficult for the People’s Republic of China to be able to contain this virus through their zero COVID strategy,” the White House statement said.

“For us, we are focused on what works and that means using the public health tools like: continuing to enhance vaccination rates, including boosters and making testing and treatment easily accessible.”

President Joe Biden and China's President Xi Jinping.
President Biden did not endorse widespread calls for Chinese President Xi Jinping to resign.
AFP via Getty Images

Chinese pandemic lockdowns and protests are roiling international supply chains.

Apple reportedly is expecting a 6 million smartphone production shortage due to work stoppages and protests at an iPhone plant in the central Chinese city Zhengzhou.

The rare civil unrest in China occurs as House Republicans vow to use their renewed subpoena powers next year to determine the extent of Joe Biden’s involvement in a pair of business deals involving his family and entities connected to the Chinese government.

A man is arrested while people gather on a street in Shanghai to protest against China's COVID lockdowns.
A man is arrested while people gather on a street in Shanghai to protest against China’s COVID lockdowns.

A protester lies on the ground after being pushed during a demonstration.
A protester lies on the ground after being pushed during a demonstration.

Police pin down and arrest a protester during a protest on a street in Shanghai.
Police pin down and arrest a protester in Shanghai.

“This committee will evaluate whether this president is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars. This is an investigation of Joe Biden,” incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said at a press conference this month.

House Republicans also plan to investigate the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab that was doing risky “gain of function” research on coronaviruses. US spy agencies assessed last year that a lab release in Wuhan was one of two “plausible” explanations for the pandemic’s origins, along with natural animal-to-human transmission, but Biden has said very little about pursuing the matter since then.

Hunter Biden cofounded a Chinese state-backed investment fund called BHR Partners in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Hunter introduced his dad to incoming BHR CEO Jonathan Li in a hotel lobby and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children, according to documents recovered from the first son’s abandoned laptop.

The Journal reported that Hunter Biden’s “paid-in capital” to establish the company was $425,000, according to corporate registration records. BHR manages $2.1 billion in assets and takes a prominent role in acquiring overseas assets.

Throughout 2021, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Hunter Biden was still working to “unwind” his 10% stake in BHR.

One week after the president’s November 2021 virtual summit with Xi, Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said the stake had been divested. However, online records show that Hunter still holds the interest. Neither Clark nor the White House would provide further information on the supposed transaction.

In 2016, BHR Partners was influential in facilitating a deal in which a Chinese firm bought a Congolese cobalt mine from American and Canadian companies. The transaction gained significant attention last year when it was spotlighted by the New York Times and because cobalt is an important material for making electric vehicle batteries.

Meanwhile, Hunter Biden and his uncle, first brother James Biden, earned $4.8 million from Beijing-linked CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, according to a Washington Post review of Hunter Biden laptop documents. That firm was regarded as an arm of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence initiative.

A May 2017 email about the CEFC partnership described the “big guy” as being due a 10% cut. Two former Hunter Biden associates, Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar, identified Joe Biden as the “big guy” and Bobulinski says he met with Joe Biden in the same month to discuss the deal.

The president has denied making any money from his son’s overseas business deals and the White House says he stands by his 2019 claim that he has never even discussed the enterprises with his son — despite evidence that he has interacted with Hunter’s associates from ChinaKazakhstanMexicoRussia and Ukraine.

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