Foreign Affairs

Pro-CCP Billionaire To Benefit From $208 Million Biden Admin Grant

Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting with President Joe Biden in Woodside, Calif., Nov. 15, 2023.

A Chinese billionaire and senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member is set to benefit from a massive award recently approved by the Biden administration, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Chinese auto magnate Li Shufu, through his firm Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, is the second-largest shareholder in Volvo Group, which the Department of Energy (DOE) will soon award $208 million to through its taxpayer-funded Domestic Manufacturing Auto Conversion Grants program, according to the Free Beacon. Li, however, is a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a body that the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says works to spread Chinese influence abroad and works toward bending foreign governments to the will of the CCP.

“The Volvo Group is very pleased to receive this grant, which will help the company and the 7,900 American workers in these three U.S. plants be even more competitive,” a Volvo Group spokesperson told the Free Beacon. “[Li] will benefit no more than any of our other shareholders — the majority of whom are Swedish, and 23% of whom are American.”

Li’s holding group has 15% of the voting power at Volvo Group, giving it considerable influence in determining the auto manufacturer’s corporate operations, according to the Free Beacon. The value of Volvo Group shares increased considerably after the DOE’s grant was announced on July 11.

In addition to his affiliation with the CPPCC, Li served as a representative in China’s National People’s Congress, which serves to rubber stamp policies developed by the CCP, the Free Beacon reported. Li also served as the vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, a CCP business group that works to support the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The Belt and Road Initiative is a global campaign spearheaded by the CCP to expand Chinese influence by making infrastructure investments in other countries, according to the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

China’s Belt and Road initiative funds projects that could aid Chinese commerce, but the program has been criticized for potentially saddling nations receiving infrastructure funds with significant debt that China can leverage for political influence, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Some have described the arrangement as a “debt trap,” citing the relatively high interest rates charged on Chinese loans.

Li in 2022 called for greater technological innovation in China “in order to fulfill peoples’ aspirations for a better life, to fully build a modern socialist country, and to boldly explore and tirelessly strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” according to the Free Beacon.

The Department of Energy defended its grant to Volvo Group when questioned by the Free Beacon, stressing that it would protect American jobs.

“Let’s be clear: DOE is funding companies here in the USA, retaining and hiring American workers and investing in American manufacturing,” a spokesman told the Free Beacon. “Sustaining 7,900 existing union jobs in the U.S. while creating 295 new jobs — that is what investing in America looks like.”

The DOE and the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.