Hunter Biden Linked to Chinese Firm Set to Profit from Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal
Joe Biden's son linked to lithium ion battery company CATL
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Democrat Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan led to mounting questions as to how it could have been so severely botched.
What should have been a steady transfer of power to the new Afghan government led to a chaotic exit that handed the country over to the Taliban terrorist group, with the lives of many Americans and Afghan allies lost along the way.
The situation has created a vacuum of control and allowed the Taliban to assert itself as the new government of Afghanistan and begin negotiating trade deals with America's enemies.
Undeterred by the Taliban's civil rights abuses or their methods of taking power, China is all-too-willing to negotiate mining deals with the terrorist group to profit from the country's untapped mineral resources.
With Biden's disastrous handling of the U.S. withdrawal allowing the Taliban to seize power, coupled with China benefitting from the lack of Western influence in the country, questions have been raised.
Among those questions are allegations that the Biden family will personally profit from Afghanistan falling to the Taliban, no matter how many lives are lost.
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Rumors initially began to emerge online that Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, own 10% of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd (CATL).
CATL is a leading lithium-ion battery development and manufacturing company based in China.
The speculation has mounted as China's financial interests in Afghanistan lithium have recently become more apparent.
The allegations about the Bidens' links to the Chinese firm prompted Facebook's left-wing fact-checker Lead Stories to investigate the claim.
Unsurprisingly, the investigation found no direct financial ties between Joe and Jill Biden and CATL.
However, it did find that Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden is, in fact, linked to the firm.
"While Joe Biden holds no such shares, there are implicit conflicts of interest in the holdings of other family members," Lead Stories notes.
"Candidate Joe Biden in 2020 reportedly warned his younger brother Frank to 'watch [him]self' over any possible business dealings.
"And Hunter Biden is the subject of a federal investigation into his tax affairs," the report adds.
"Hunter Biden held a 10% equity stake in BHR Partners, a Chinese private equity firm that is reported to be a CATL shareholder."
On October 13, 2019, Hunter Biden's lawyer George Mesires published a statement on behalf of his client claiming:
To date, Hunter has not received any compensation for being on BHR's board of directors.
He has not received any return on his investment; there have been no distributions to BHR shareholders since Hunter obtained his equity interest.
Moreover, Hunter played no role in directing or making BHR's investments. Hunter intends to resign from the BHR board of directors on or by October 31, 2019.
According to Morningstar, CATL's stock price rose 86.92% between November 9, 2020 -- the first day the market was open following November 7, 2020, the day Biden was declared the "winner" of the presidential election by the media -- and September 16, 2021.
In that period, the highest stock price rise was on August 4, 2021, when it hit a 113.57% increase.
Between the time Biden was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, and September 16, CATL's stock price rose 27.24%.
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Previous reports from the U.S. have claimed that Afghanistan is rich in lithium and other minerals.
However, there is no mention of lithium in the summary table of commodities in a report from Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines and Petroleum published in 2019.
Further, there doesn't appear to be an official record of the country's lithium value.
A report from the U.S. Geological Survey, titled "The Mineral Industry of Afghanistan, 2017-18," does not enumerate the value of Afghanistan's lithium reserves at that time.
Yet, in 2010, The New York Times reported that U.S. officials discovered approximately $1 trillion worth of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan.
The report states that the discovery included what is potentially the world's largest lithium deposits.
China did engage in talks with the Taliban about relations between the two countries before the U.S. completely pulled out of Afghanistan.
However, while insiders predict that China will attempt to use Afghanistan's wealth of minerals to its advantage, China's specific financial interests in Afghanistan have yet to be revealed.
