Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

DCNF Reporter Reveals How China-Linked Investor Owns Pentagon Contractor

The U.S. and Chinese flags wave in the wind before a full-honor welcome ceremony for Chinese Gen. Fang Fenghui, chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, at the Pentagon, May 15, 2014. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hosted the ceremony, the first time, since 2012, a full-honors ceremony was conducted. (Flickr/Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)

A Daily Caller News Foundation reporter detailed how a Department of Defense (DOD) contractor is owned by a Hong Kong-based investment firm linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Tutor.com, which receives funding via the DOD’s Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) General Library Program, is owned by Primavera Capital, a venture capital firm that also invested in ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. DCNF investigative reporter Phil Lenczycki detailed Primavera Capital CEO Fred Hu’s ties to the CCP during a Friday appearance on “China In Focus” on NTD.

“On Primavera’s website, on the Chinese side, we found that he’s listed as a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and it says that he joined in 2008,” Lenczycki told host Tiffany Meier.

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“He’s listed there on the roster and there are even photos of him in attendance at meetings wearing this distinctive red clip-on badge,” Lenczycki added. The badge was issued to delegates attending various meetings where CCP officials provide direction to the CPPCC as to how Chinese policies are to be characterized.

Meier noted that a spokesperson for Primavera denied Hu had ties to the CCP, and questioned Lenczycki about the denials.

“They do celebrate Halloween in China, so he might have been dressing up, I suppose,” Lenczycki said. “But I doubt it. I think it’s more likely they are playing a word game.”

“He might not currently, at the time of writing the email, be a member of the organization, but from the evidence we have found, it certainly appears that he was in the past,” Lenczycki said.

Had a lovely time w/ @ChinaInFocusNTD‘s @tiffanymeier_ discussing @DailyCaller‘s report on the Chinese gov ties of Primavera Capital CEO Fred Hu

Primavera invested in @tiktok_us‘s parent, @BytedanceTalk + owns @ThePrincetonRev & @tutordotcom, which has a @DeptofDefense contract pic.twitter.com/o350lIiPPw

— Philip Lenczycki 蔡岳 (@LenczyckiPhilip) March 16, 2024

Lenczycki also noted that Primavera has invested in companies sanctioned by the United States for human-rights violations in Xinjiang Province.