Biden's trip to China with son Hunter in 2013 comes under new scrutiny |NBC News - Oct. 2, 2019 |

What wasn't known then was that as he accompanied his father to China, Hunter Biden was forming a Chinese private equity fund that associates said at the time was planning to raise big money, including from China. Hunter Biden has acknowledged meeting with Jonathan Li, a Chinese banker and his partner in the fund during the trip, although his spokesman says it was a social visit.

Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai)
Equity Investment Fund
(Name change per 31 May, 2023 to "BHR Partners")
Management Co., Ltd

Founded    2013

Founders:
Hunter Biden
Devon Archer
Jonathan Li

Headquarters: Beijing, China

Key people:
Jonathan Li (CEO)
AUM  ¥12 billion RMB (April 2017)

Owners:     Bohai Industrial Investment Fund
Harvest Fund Management
Rosemont Seneca Bohai
Thornton Group LLC

The Chinese business license that brought the new fund into existence was issued by Shanghai authorities 10 days after the trip, with Hunter Biden a member of the board.

[...]

In fact, the biggest tension point between the vice president's office and journalists accompanying Biden on the trip was over the media's coverage of his five and a half hours of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Reporters had described Biden as "somber" or "subdued" during a photo-op, suggesting the meeting may not have gone well.

"Candor generates trust," Biden told Xi during the photo-op. "Trust is the basis on which real change -- constructive change -- is made."

It was about midnight by the time Biden's marathon meetings with Xi wrapped up, and Hunter Biden wasn't present for the meeting. But by the next afternoon, he and his daughter had linked back up with the vice president, joining him for some family time in Beijing's Dongcheng District, a bustling shopping district not far from Tiananmen Square.

Trailed by a throng of photographers and curious locals, the Bidens spent roughly an hour perusing gift shops, buying Magnum ice cream bars from a street vendor and discussed holiday presents for relatives loudly enough that the journalists with them could hear. Hunter Biden, in an apple-red sweater and white collared shirt, also joined his daughter and father for an elaborate traditional tea ceremony involving "white tea" leaves dried in sunlight and "blue tea" leaves dried in moonlight.

Several former White House officials who traveled with Biden on the trip told NBC News that they didn't know at the time that Hunter Biden had any business interests in China and were unaware of his private schedule while in Beijing.

They said there were no indications the younger Biden had connected his work to his father's government position. "It just wasn't something that was on any of our radar screens," said Jake Sullivan, who was Biden's national security adviser at the time. "Hunter's presence didn't really factor into anything the vice president and the team were thinking about from a policy or diplomacy perspective."

Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz founded Rosemont Seneca Partners in 2009

In 2009, Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and John Kerry's stepson Christopher Heinz, founded Rosemont Seneca Partners, a private equity business, with a friend Devon Archer. The three formed a group of related limited liability companies (LLCs). It was linked to the Heinz family's alternative investment firm.