The notion that a declining power like Russia, which has domestic problems, a shrinking economy, a shrinking demographic base, is somehow a bigger threat than China is laughable. It is indicative of a larger issue, which is that Biden essentially has a soft spot for Beijing. The question, of course, is why?

This is a commercial relationship that not only has made the Bidens money. It has advanced the strategic and military interests of the Chinese government itself.

The first one is a private equity arrangement or deal that Hunter Biden has with the Chinese government itself. This is a deal that began and was finalized in December of 2013. It led to the creation of something called Bohai Harvest RST or BHR Partners.... the Chinese government poured in a billion dollars. They later expanded that to a-billion-and-a-half dollars.... One of the partnering firms that created BHR was Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Hunter Biden was put on the board of directors of BHR Partners.... What is astonishing about this is, first of all, that the Chinese government funded this venture. Again, these are not individual Chinese companies. This is Chinese government money.

In 2017, his lawyers admitted that he [Hunter Biden] also took a personal stake. In addition to the firm that he owned part of, he took a personal stake in these deals. That is deal number one. Then there is deal number two with the Chinese government. This involves a real estate firm called Rosemont Real Estate, of which Hunter Biden was a co‑founder.

Rosemont then becomes Gemini Rosemont Realty. The Chinese government is later to put in more than $100 million in cash. They publicly say that they are going to put billions of dollars of equity into this entity to make it even more successful. Here you have two large deals.

When you look at what that private equity firm does, the first thing they do is they become an anchor investor in a Chinese firm called China General Nuclear (CGN). Why is this interesting? This is a nuclear energy firm that about eight months after Hunter Biden's BHR becomes an anchor investor, they are charged by the FBI in the United States. That firm was stealing nuclear secrets in the United States.

In particular, CGN is trying to gain technologies related to the small nuclear reactors that are put on submarines, which provide a huge military advantage to the United States.

Another acquisition they make is that Hunter Biden's BHR firm buys half of a company called Henniges in Michigan -- and another Chinese entity buys the other half. That other half is bought by AVIC, which is the Chinese state‑owned aviation military contractor. AVIC builds all the military aircraft for the Chinese military.

What I think is important about the Biden story is not simply the fact that the Biden family made money because of the Chinese military and that Joe Biden speaks very kindly about the Chinese since those deals have gone down, but also that the Biden family involving the son of the vice president directly benefit the Chinese military.

China is a power that has demonstrated over the last decade that they want, by 2025, to supplant the United States as the major economic power in the world. Then by 2030, they want to match the United States militarily.

The Chinese government has also spoken openly about their desire to upturn and change the global order for their benefit. What we have in the Biden family is a family that has become wealthy by enabling, helping, aiding and abetting the Chinese in doing exactly that.

In terms of Hunter Biden doing nothing wrong, it does not seem that there has been anything illegal. I have always contended that the problem in Washington DC is that some of the worst crimes or worst acts of corruption are done by people who engage in legal behavior. In Washington DC, the political class gets to make their own rules. They get to rig the game, as it were, to ensure that the real lucrative stuff that is corrupt -- and should be illegal -- is the very stuff that they engage in.

Hunter Biden has stepped off the board of directors of BHR. Here is the problem: he still retains his equity stake with this Chinese firm. He still has other deals that he conducted with the Chinese from which he benefited.

The Biden team has lied repeatedly. I can go into greater detail.... It has been subterfuge from the beginning. They need to be called out on it..... The American people understand if somebody's giving you a sweetheart deal, particularly an actor like China... without getting something in return. They are not that stupid.

The problem is the way that rules are written in Washington DC, they are written by the political class themselves. They carve out certain things.... If [Biden] gets a $250 campaign contribution from a GE executive, it is disclosed by the FEC.... If his adult son flying on Air Force Two, clearly close with the vice president, strikes a series of deals with a foreign government that are lucrative and beneficial to him, there is no requirement for disclosure -- which, to me, is shocking. One of the things that has to change is that we need greater transparency.

The great gold mine that they have discovered are these foreign entities. With Hunter Biden, you have these deals in China. You also have the deal in Ukraine that everybody's familiar with.... [Hunter Biden] is given a million dollars a year by a company even though he has no background in Ukraine and no background in energy. Everybody knows what is going on. Unfortunately, it is legal.

There ought to at minimum be a requirement that you disclose any foreign dealings involving the family members of politicians, Republican, Democrat, executive branch, legislative branch. That would be very, very helpful. The way you discuss this and you explain this to people is: It is not a question about what is legal. There are lots of things that are legal in Washington that are highly corrupt. The key thing is, does this compromise Joe Biden?... Has he done favors for that foreign power?

One of the things that the great Roger Robinson has been working on.... He is looking into the fact that in 2013, the Obama administration signed a letter which said that the Chinese companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange did not have to conform to Sarbanes‑Oxley auditing and some of the other requirements that US and other foreign firms do. It is quite a cutout for the Chinese.

The question about blackmail, to be blunt about it, is, are they going to need to blackmail Joe Biden? Joe Biden's posture towards China is incredibly soft.

[T]here has been a complete lack of curiosity by the media, and even, as we have seen, suppression.

Something may emerge but I am not sure there is something that they want that he is not already prepared to give them.

The man who faces the electorate on May 14 [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan] could be seen as one who has made more enemies for Türkiye than anyone since the siege of Vienna. He has upset NATO allies by flirting with Putin and blocking Sweden's membership of the alliance. Once regarded as a national goal, joining the European Union is now as likely as a snowball's chance in hell. Erdogan has also antagonized Israel, once a valued friend, in the hope of pleasing the mullahs of Tehran. Yet he has also angered the same mullahs by helping the former Soviet Azerbaijan Republic in its war with Armenia, which is backed by Iran. Erdogan's saber-rattling against Greece has put a stop to investment needed to tap energy resources in the Aegean Sea, a potential pot of gold for half a dozen states in the region.

Erdogan has also led Türkiye into shady deals involving sanctions-busting operations to help the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Erdogan now presides over a government that tops the list of nations with the largest number of political prisoners, including journalists.

More importantly, I wouldn't put it past Erdogan to try to fix the election in his own favor. A man who believes he has a divine mission to rule wouldn't shy away from a little bit of election-rigging.

Spring may or may not come to Türkiye, as Erdogan's opponents wish and pray for. But if it does, it would be great news for all those who see Türkiye as a major regional power and one that could assume a leadership position in helping to end the multiple crises that affect the Middle East, North Africa, Transcaucasia, and large chunks of Europe.