U.S. relations with China were steady in December 2013 when then-Vice President Joe Biden stepped off Air Force Two in Beijing with a seemingly unremarkable companion: his son Hunter.
Days later, Shanghai authorities approved the formation of an investment boutique, underwritten by Chinese government money, that named Hunter Biden as a director and later cut him an ownership share at a discounted price. Roughly four months afterward, he began earning up to $1 million annually for sitting on a corporate board in Ukraine, a country his father paid special attention to as vice president. Hunter Biden would go on to earn millions more from a brief association with a Chinese energy-and-finance conglomerate trying to break into the U.S.
