The incumbent US president's son Hunter Biden collaborated with a senior Beijing diplomat he met at a luncheon his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, hosted in January 2011 to arrange a dinner at the Chinese Embassy in Washington for a client of his now-defunct investment company, the New York Post reported on Thursday, citing obtained correspondence.
According to the publication, on April 28, 2011, Marvin Lang, the managing director of Guardian Realty in Maryland, with the aid of Hunter and Eric Schwerin, a former associate at Rosemont Seneca Partners, helped arrange the meal with Deng Hongbo, the embassy's deputy chief of mission.
The event was then made public on the website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The keynote talk of the event was reportedly given by Ted Kaufman, a longtime adviser to Joe Biden who was selected to replace his Senate seat after the elder Biden was inaugurated as vice president in 2009.
According to the report, Schwerin paid him $10,000 for the honor. In emails sent in December 2010, Schwerin, Lang, and Hunter Biden discussed the dinner plan.
Major Democratic contributor Lang got in touch with the son of the vice president at the time to thank him for a lunch meeting and express his excitement about forging a "long relationship" with Rosemont.
Then, following communications between the three, Hunter Biden sent Schwerin an email on January 12, 2011, stating: "Marvin wants to know where we are in on finding space for the dinner — Chinese embassy is his #1 choice."
Seven days later, Schwerin emailed Lang and Hunter Biden to let them know that Hunter Biden had lunch with the "number three official" at the Chinese Embassy and that the contact would be "helpful" in organizing the dinner for Guardian Realty.
“[I] just talked to Hunter and he said he sat with the number three official at the Embassy today at lunch and has contact information to follow up after the [Chinese] President has left the US,” Schwerin wrote, per the report. "Hunter’s said his contact will be helpful, but the Minister won’t be able to focus on this until after the delegation has left at the end of the week. Sounds like this is the right contact though."
The message exchange is notable because the senior Biden and Hillary Clinton, who was the secretary of state at the time, attended a luncheon for then-Chinese leader Hu Jintao at the State Department on January 19, 2011, the same day Schwerin sent the email.
The evening before the lunch at the State Department, Schwerin informed Hunter Biden through email that he would be seated next to Ron Klain, who was then Vice President Biden's chief of staff and currently holds the same position at the White House.
Hunter Biden's email regarding his communications with "Minister Yang" received a response from Zhou Jingxing, the deputy director at the Chinese Embassy, on January 28, 2011. Yang Jiechi, a Chinese Communist Party member since 1971 who served as foreign minister from 2007 to 2013, is reported to be the subject of the reference.
“Minister Yang asked me to follow up with you directly. You will be receiving a formal request from Guardian’s Chairman, Marvin Lang, shortly but I wanted to put forward some dates that work on their end: May 5, 12, or 19,” Hunter wrote to Zhou. “We look forward to working with you and thank you for your help and consideration.”
Zhou in response promised to check with Embassy logistics to see if the dining room is open on the days the younger Biden suggested.
Emails from a month later allegedly revealed Lang was getting anxious since the embassy had not yet decided on a date. On February 28, he sent Schwerin a letter stating that the company "absolutely needs the approval for dinner in writing." After contacting Hunter Biden to see if he could obtain a letter of approval from the Chinese, Schwerin proposed getting in touch with the Turkish Embassy about hosting the event in its place.
Schwerin's request for a confirmation letter, according to Hunter Biden's response, ran "the risk of seriously offending the Chinese." Then, in the first week of March, Schwerin gave Lang the reassurance that Hunter Biden had negotiated the terms of the meeting with the Chinese Embassy.
Moreover, he stated that the meal would be served in a banquet manner and that it would cost $80 for food (which would include nine courses, a Chinese dessert, and fruit), plus $10 for wine per person.
After the dinner on April 28, Schwerin shared Lang's email with Hunter Biden, who described Kaufman's attendance as "terrific and very interesting."
“As you could tell, there were a lot of questions from our investors. Last night was very exciting and we appreciated Hunter’s involvement. He is very talented and approachable, which is a nice quality. Plus, he is very smart,” Lang wrote to Schwerin. “I would appreciate a formal invoice for our files and will have the check sent out Monday, in any event. We also appreciated your involvement and help with the protocol, speech, etc.”
Later, Lang reportedly thanked Hunter Biden himself for organizing the meal in an email on May 1.
“We appreciated the help that we received from Eric and Rosemont Seneca in drafting a ‘thank-you’ speech to the Minister and the help that we received on the appropriate gift for the Embassy,” he wrote. "We also felt that you added intrinsic value in ‘closing out’ the successful evening with your follow-on explanation to Minister Deng’s answer to a question that was raised. It was a terrific evening."
In October 2020, The Post, followed by multiple outlets, published a series of reports about Hunter Biden that focused on his dubious business dealings in China and Ukraine when his father was vice president. Documents and emails were discovered on a laptop Hunter Biden left at a Delaware computer repair shop.