Unseen pictures of Joe and Hunter Biden in China raise fresh questions for president about son's businesses

Previously unseen photos of Joe and Hunter Biden meeting with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and many of Hunter's business partners has put new heat on the troubled First Son. 

Joe Biden and his oldest living child have dominated the news cycles post-election after the president gave Hunter a blanket pardon on gun and tax fraud charges that dated back to 2013. 

The newly released snaps from the National Archives show Biden during his vice presidency on a visit to China.

Hunter hobnobs with the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as father Joe introduces them in one of the shots, while Joe also links Hunter up with then-Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao.

The son appears to return the favor, introducing the then-vice president to to BHR Partners executives - including Ming Xue and Jonathan Li - who did dealings with the younger Biden in the past. 

BHR ('Bohai Harvest RST') is a private equity firm and one of Hunter's two major Chinese business ventures. The joint venture was co-owned by the state-controlled Bank of China.

The president has fervently denied having had any business-related contact with Hunter in the past, though that was proven false during the Republican Party's impeachment inquiry. 

Hunter has always maintained and testified in public that they never discussed anything in terms of business. 

'There is simply nothing new here,' Hunter's attorney Abbe Lowell told CNN in a statement.

'The photos match perfectly to Hunter's congressional testimony description of who he saw at this public event during a 2013 trip to China,' Lowell continued. 

Lowell also criticized what he called groups allied with Donald Trump for pushing to release the pictures. 

'These attacks trying to twist these images into something they are not is just more of the same old tired, misinformation spin from some Republicans who can't let go of their ridiculous conspiracy theories and baseless accusations,' he added.

America First Legal, a group run by Trump advisor Stephen Miller, sued the National Archives to get the photos released. 

'These photos corroborate the House Oversight Committee's investigative findings that Hunter Biden arranged for his father to meet with Jonathan Li and other BHR executives during the 2013 China trip, where 'Mr. Li sought - and received - access to Vice President Biden's political power,' America First Legal said in a statement. 

DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment. 

The president's son was one of three Americans who joined Chinese partners in establishing the Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Company, or BHR, in 2013.

The Americans controlled 30 percent of the company and made successful investments that culminated in aiding China Molybdenum purchase the Tenke Fungurume cobalt mine in the Congo from the American company Freeport-McMoRan in 2016, the New York Times reported.

BHR slowly made its way into an investment powerhouse after helping finance an Australian coal-mining company controlled by a Chinese state-owned firm, the paper reported. 

The investment company's big break came in 2016 when it bought and sold a stake in CATL, a Chinese company that is now the world's biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles. 

That same year, China Molybdenum - one of the world's leading producers of the precious metals molybdenum and tungsten - announced it would purchase the Tenke Fungurume cobalt mine from Freeport-McMoRan, an American mining company.

But in order to purchase the mine, the Chinese company needed a partner to buy out one of the stakeholders, Lundin Mining of Canada. 

That's when BHR came in to buy out Lundin with $1.14 billion raised entirely from obscure Chinese state-backed companies, according to the Times.

Biden still controlled 10 percent of BHR when its shares of the mines were sold to China Molybdenum in 2019. 

Chinese records show Biden was no longer on BHR's board as of April 2020, and a former board member told the Times that the American founders were not directly involved in the mine deal and supposedly earned only a nominal fee from it. 

The president has often faced backlash for Biden's dealings with Chinese and Ukrainian companies through banks, lobbies and investment firms.

Hunter Biden has never been charged with corruption, though his tax fraud conviction stems from unpaid taxes on his overseas business deals. 

In 2024, Hunter did testify to Congress he was either drunk or on drugs when he pretended his father was sitting next to him in a successful bid to persuade a Chinese company to pay the family $5.1 million.

Two years earlier, the White House stood by President Joe Biden's comments when he said in 2020 there had been nothing unethical in his son's foreign business dealings and that he never made money from China, following fresh reporting about how Hunter Biden profited from his famous father.

Chinese company CEFC China Energy paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter and his uncle James in 2017.

Although the Washington Post did not allege that President Biden was personally involved, it reported that Hunter Biden used his father's influence and contacts to secure the payments. 

Biden defended his son when challenged by President Donald Trump about his foreign business dealings in the final presidential debate in 2020.

And White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield said officials stood by his assessment that nothing was unethical and Hunter did not make money from China. 

'We absolutely stand by the president's comment,' she said when asked by a reporter during the daily briefing.

She also declined to answer other questions about Hunter's business dealings and whether officials were considering a pardon for the president's son. 

'As you know, I don't speak for Hunter Biden,' she said. 'So there's not more I can say on that.'

Hunter Biden's business dealings were a frequent attack line for Trump and his supporters during the election campaign.

A trove of emails found on Hunter's abandoned laptop provided fuel for their attacks, and the Washington Post is among the news organizations that have confirmed their authenticity - a year after the DailyMail.com began reporting on their contents.

Trump demanded that Biden address the emails, and details of the lucrative business deals they outlines. 

'Nothing was unethical,' said Biden about his son's role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma - despite lacking experience in the industry. 

In an another exchange he addressed allegations about Chinese deals.

'My son has not made money from ... China,' said Biden before directing his comments at Trump. 'The only guy who has made money from China was this guy.' 

The Washington Post story said documents - previously reported by DailyMail.com - showed that Hunter was paid a $1 million retainer in 2017 to represent his business partner Patrick Ho, a partner of CEFC, who was being prosecuted by the US government.

And it suggested another email suggested the president himself could have been involved in Hunter's business dealings with the Chinese.

'I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,' Joe Biden said on the presidential campaign trail in 2019. 

In September 2017 Hunter was planning to open a new office for his multi-million-dollar joint venture with CEFC at the House of Sweden, a Georgetown building home to the Swedish embassy.

He wrote to a building manager: 'please have keys made available for new office mates: Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden, Gongwen Dong (Chairman Ye CEFC emissary).'

Biden Foundation board member Jeffrey Peck told the Post: 'There was never any thought — like zero thought or consideration — given to that building.'

The House of Sweden said they made the keys but Hunter never picked them up.

In early December, Joe Biden announced that he would issue a presidential pardon for his troubled son Hunter, calling his prosecution 'selective' and 'unfair.'

The bombshell U-turn decision will see Hunter get pardoned for any crimes he may have committed 'from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024'. It comes just weeks after The White House denied the president would make the drastic move in the final months of his lame duck presidency.

 Biden, himself, said as recently as June that he would 'not pardon' his son, unlike Trump who has outright said he wants to pardon January 6 rioters. 

'From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department's decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,' Biden said in a statement.

The president claimed that people are 'almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form... It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.' 

Biden raged against 'several of my political opponents in Congress' who he claimed made the charges a public spectacle 'to attack me and oppose my election.' 

He added that the plea deal Hunter, who has since pledged to 'make amends' for his crimes, agreed to with the Department of Justice was a 'fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter's cases.' But that deal fell through at the last minute under political pressure.

'No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because is my son - and that is wrong,' he continued.

But critics claimed the broadly written pardon was an attempt to cover-up his actions on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

Biden says that there has been an effort to 'break Hunter' and destroy what he says is five-and-a-half years of sobriety. 

'In trying to break Hunter, they've tried to break me - and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.'

The president didn't shy away from pointing out that the love of his son guided his decision-making but stressed that he was being 'fair-minded.'

'Here's the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice - and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further.'

Hunter was last seen on holiday with his father and the rest of the Bidens on Nantucket in Rhode Island.

'I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.' 

Hunter released a statement of his own, credited to his full name, 'Robert Hunter Biden.'

'I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction - mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,' he said.

'Despite all of this, I have maintained my sobriety for more than five years because of my deep faith and the unwavering love and support of my family and friends.'

'In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages. In recovery we can be given the opportunity to make amends where possible and rebuild our lives if we never take for granted the mercy that we have been afforded.'

'I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.' 

The pardon will cover both the gun charges and Hunter's guilty plea. CNN reported that the judges overseeing his cases will most likely cancel the sentencing hearings he was due to attend on December 12 for the gun case and December 16 for the tax case. 

The broad pardon also absolves him of any crimes he may have committed between January 1 2014 and December 1 2024, which covers his entire tenure on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, as well as much of his other overseas work including in China. 

This has led many to theorize that there is something lurking underneath the pardon which is meant to acquit Hunter Biden of charges that came to light in 2018.