I don’t think Trump should have asked China to investigate the Bidens, but not for the reasons stated by Ted Cruz.
It’s not a matter of it being inappopriate to ask, but it’s because its silly. The Chinese investment firm was created to buy sensitive dual-use American technology companies. The $1.5 billion is the amount under management, not the amount that flowed to Hunter and indirectly, Joe Biden. The Chinese government approves of the company’s purpose and acquistions, and how they spend the management fees necessary to perform those acquisitions is a business matter. It’s bribery, and the government approves as long as it helps their acquistions get through the CFIUS process.
The size of the bribe in China isn’t billions... it’s more like a percentage of the management fee (I think Hunter was a 20% owner). So, if there was a 1 % of assets management fee, the total management take was about $15 million; after operating expenses, Hunter’s take might have “only” been a million or two per year, maybe less. It doesn’t take billions to bribe Joe Biden. It takes a few millions; but for those few millions, he will help control the flow much larger amounts.
Since this is an implementation of Chinese strategic policy, its naive to expect the Chinese to investigate it in any meaningful way. The situation is different than that in the Ukraine, where the new Zelensky government, and much of the population were sick of corruption and wanted it investigate.
Also, the corruption of the Ukraine and the corruption of China are entirely different. In China, the bribing of influential foreigners is consistent with national policy. In the Ukraine, there appears to be a lot of private corruption and skimming of revenues from the gas business and foreign aid, diverting national revenues into private hands.
In both cases, bribing the Bidens (and Kerry stepson Chris Heinz) was useful in influencing US policy, but in different ways. PS—it also appears that Nancy Pelosi’s son got involved in some Ukrainian action, as well.
True but think of the implications of having control over 1.5 billion to invest. What control will that allow the fund to have over other business? What other businesses can be the subject of a shake down when they need cash and political clout? Think leverage. What additional leverage can be had when investing these amounts?