The Chao Family: How a 45-Year Red Secret Passage Leads to Washington | Yao Yao Jiang
The video investigates how the family of Elaine Chao has established connections with China spanning 45 years through business, identity, and relationships, gradually infiltrating the core of American politics. From James Chao founding the Foremost Group to Elaine Chao entering American politics, to Mitch McConnell becoming Senate leader, and family members serving as directors for Chinese state-owned enterprises, the video reveals how this trans-Pacific "secret passage" operates within the American political and commercial systems. Although there is no direct evidence of criminal activity, the video reconstructs the timeline to demonstrate how China has long cultivated a family to influence U.S. political decision-making, while exploring the limitations of U.S. law in handling such complex relationships.
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Hello everyone, I am Yao Yao Jiang.
Today, we are investigating a secret passage that spans the Pacific Ocean directly to the core of American power.
In June 2016, Elaine Chao was visiting China.
During this period, her 84-year-old husband, former U.S. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, suddenly suffered cardiac arrest and was rushed to the hospital.
Elaine Chao did not return to the United States immediately, but instead continued to complete her official meeting with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng.
This incident caused quite a bit of controversy in the United States.
What I am truly concerned about is not why she did not return, but why Beijing insisted on holding this meeting at such a critical moment?
And why Elaine Chao chose to stay.
Tracing back through the Chao family's decades of business, identity, and relationships, one discovers that Beijing has long been cultivating not just Elaine Chao, but the entire Chao family.
Using the open political and commercial systems of the United States, and under the guise of markets, financing, honors, and identity, the CCP has bit by bit dug a secret passage from Beijing to the center of power in Washington.
No one knows how deep this secret passage extends, or how much influence it has had on American political decision-making.
Today, let's look at how this secret passage was dug, and why it has been able to exist for decades within the American legal and political system.
Let's first look at Elaine Chao's trip this June.
On June 12th, Elaine Chao was already in Shanghai.
She accompanied her nearly 100-year-old father, James Chao, to Shanghai Jiao Tong University to donate a collection of family historical photos to the school's memorial hall.
The Chao family has had dealings with Shanghai Jiao Tong University for many years; there is a building on campus named after her mother, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao, and the family has donated to the school in the past.
Looking at this day alone, it seems more like an ordinary family charity event.
An elderly alumnus returns to their alma mater, accompanied by their daughter to supplement the school's family historical archives.
Two days later, on June 14th, news came from across the ocean that Elaine Chao's husband, 84-year-old former U.S. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, had suddenly suffered cardiac arrest in Washington.
After cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he was rushed to the hospital.
This was not an ordinary incident, but a medical emergency significant enough to command the high attention of the entire American political scene.
But Elaine Chao did not end her trip.
On June 16th, she continued her activities in China, meeting with Wu Ken, head of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs.
The next day, she appeared in Beijing again to meet with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng.
The meeting announcement released by the Chinese side showed that Han Zheng expressed hope that both China and the U.S. would strengthen exchanges and cooperation.
Elaine Chao responded that a stable China-U.S. relationship is in the interests of both countries and that people-to-people exchanges should continue to be promoted.
A trip that originally appeared to be a family charity visit thus moved from a university campus into the meeting hall of China's top leaders.
It is precisely because of this that the trip transcended the family scope and became a piece of political news that drew collective attention from the U.S. media.
Subsequently, the U.S. media successively posed a series of questions to her.
Besides Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which other Chinese officials did you meet with?
Who arranged the meeting with Han Zheng?
After your husband became critically ill, did you consider ending the visit early?
Elaine Chao's side provided no further response.
Many theories later circulated online regarding these questions, suggesting that Elaine Chao had rushed to China even after her husband became critically ill.
However, the actual chronological order is not as we just analyzed.
When Mitch McConnell suffered a cardiac arrest, she was already in China.
Therefore, what is truly worth questioning is not why he had to go to China at that critical juncture, but why she chose to remain there after learning of her husband's critical condition, without changing the original itinerary.
To this day, we still do not know why this meeting was so important that it could not be canceled, nor do we know how much was discussed beyond the official press releases.
But one thing is certain: the person Beijing received was by no means just Elaine Chao, a former U.S. Cabinet Secretary; they were receiving the entire Chao family behind her.
To understand this 2016 meeting, we must first understand how this family has, step by step over more than forty years, become a secret passage for the CCP to reach the top power circles in Washington.
The story must begin in 1981.
In November 1981, a group of visitors from the United States walked onto the campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, led by a Harvard University lecture delegation.
Among the crowd was a 28-year-old young Chinese-American woman, Elaine Chao.
Accompanying her back were her parents.
This was her first time returning to China, and it was also the first time James S.C. Chao had brought his family back to his alma mater.
The connection between the Chao family and Shanghai Jiao Tong University dates back to 1946.
James S.C. Chao was admitted to the National Chiao Tung University, the predecessor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
In 1949, James S.C. Chao graduated from the navigation school and boarded the ship Tianping for an internship.
No one expected that this voyage, which was supposed to return to Shanghai, would completely change direction due to the Chinese Civil War.
The Tianping eventually arrived in Taiwan after several twists and turns.
This young sailor, who had just graduated, therefore remained there.
In Taiwan, James S.C. Chao did not start a business immediately but continued to work on ships.
From an ordinary crew member to a first mate and then a captain, he spent almost his entire youth at sea.
By the end of 1958, he was already a well-known top-tier captain in the Taiwan maritime industry.
Yet, just when his career was at its smoothest, he made a decision that many found unexpected.
He resigned from his position as captain and went to the United States alone.
From operating a single ship to running a shipping company, he started his life over again.
Six years later, in 1964, he founded the Foremost Group in New York, step by step developing it into one of the most influential enterprises in the Chinese-American shipping industry.
In 1987, when James S.C. Chao walked into Shanghai Jiao Tong University again, he had been away from China for more than thirty years.
This alumnus returning to his alma mater was no longer the young man from back then, but a successful Chinese-American entrepreneur.
For Shanghai Jiao Tong University, he was an alumnus returning after a long absence.
But in a China that had just launched its reform and opening-up, such an overseas Chinese who was familiar with the American business world while always retaining a Chinese cultural background already held another layer of significance.
In that year, Elaine Chao had also reached a new starting point in her life.
Born in Taiwan, she moved to the United States with her parents as a child, grew up in New York, graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1975, obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979, and subsequently joined Citibank to work in shipping finance.
The father ran a shipping company, and the daughter was responsible for shipping finance.
The two stood at opposite ends of the same industrial chain.
Placed in today's context, such a resume is not rare, but in 1987, a young woman with a Harvard MBA background who entered a Wall Street financial institution and grew up in a Chinese shipping family was not common among the entire overseas Chinese community.
Therefore, she did not become a supporting character in this visit just because she was accompanying her father back to his hometown.
On the contrary, in a China that had just begun to embrace the world again, a young Chinese-American professional who had received an elite American education and could understand both China and the United States was, in herself, the type of person the reform and opening-up policy most hoped to establish connections with.
At the time, no one knew where she would head in the future, but she already possessed several of the scarcest resources of that era: an international educational background, professional financial capability, a Chinese identity, and the experience of connecting the two worlds of China and the United States.
In 1983, Elaine Chao left New York for Washington.
In that year, she was selected for the White House Fellows program of the Reagan administration.
This program selects a dozen or so young professionals from across the United States every year to work in core departments of the federal government for one year, and is regarded as an important channel for the U.S. to cultivate future senior civil servants.
Elaine Chao was assigned to the White House Domestic Policy Council, stepping into the core decision-making system of the U.S. federal government for the first time.
For a thirty-year-old Chinese-American woman, this was a leap-like transformation.
Starting from this year, her life trajectory completely left the business world and entered the U.S. administrative system, moving all the way up.
Just as Elaine Chao entered the White House, 1,000 kilometers away in Kentucky, another timeline also began to change direction.
In 1984, the United States held presidential and congressional elections.
Kentucky Democratic Senator Walter Huddleston had served three consecutive terms and was deeply experienced.
Almost everyone thought he would easily win this fourth term.
His challenger was Mitch McConnell, a local official with almost no national recognition.
Only two months were left before the vote.
McConnell's own internal polls were still lagging, and his chances of winning looked slim.
He invited Roger Ailes, a figure who would later change the way American political communication worked.
Decades later, Ailes would found Fox News.
In 1984, however, he was still just a highly talented campaign consultant.
Ailes designed an advertisement for McConnell that was later written into U.S. political communication textbooks.
In the ad, a pack of hounds ran around in a city, darted through woods, and climbed stairs, as if endlessly searching for someone.
And the voiceover repeatedly asked: Where has he gone?
And this "he" was the then-incumbent Senator Huddleston.
The ad satirized him for leaving Kentucky for long periods to attend paid speeches across various places, frequently missing even important Senate votes.
Even more cleverly, Ailes held back the ad until the final stage of the election, leaving the opponent virtually no time to launch a counterattack.
Voting ended on November 6, 1984.
National media outlets were reporting Reagan's landslide reelection victory, while Kentucky witnessed an almost unexpected reversal.
In the end, McConnell defeated Huddleston by a narrow margin of 5,269 votes, or 0.4 percentage points.
This was not only the most fiercely contested Senate election nationwide that year, but also the only Senate seat flipped from the Democrats by the Republicans nationwide.
In 1983, Elaine Chao walked into the White House.
In 1984, McConnell walked into the Senate.
One entered the U.S. administrative system, and the other entered the U.S. legislative system.
At the time, they did not know each other, let alone imagine that a few years later, their lives would converge through a marriage.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific, the Zhao family's story also began to enter a new phase.
In 1988, the Foremost Group officially signed a contract with Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard for this Chinese state-owned shipyard to build a 65,000-ton bulk carrier.
This was the first time Foremost had large ocean-going cargo ships built in China.
Building a ship is not like buying a commodity.
From design, construction to delivery, an ocean-going cargo ship often takes two to three years.
once a company decides which country to build its ships in, subsequent repairs, parts, technical cooperation, and even the next batch of orders will gradually follow.
For a shipping enterprise, where the first order lands often determines the direction of its future cooperation.
More importantly, what undertook this order at the time was a Chinese state-owned shipyard.
Starting from this year, the Zhao family's relationship with China was no longer just alumni visits or charity, but truly entered China's national industrial system for the first time.
If returning to Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1981 reconnected human relationships, then the contract in 1988 connected interests.
Just one year later, this business line moved another step forward.
In August 1989, only two months had passed since the June Fourth incident in Beijing Zhongnanhai.
China was in the most difficult diplomatic period since the reform and opening up, with Western countries successively announcing sanctions against China and relations with Europe and the U.S. hitting rock bottom.
Yet against this backdrop, James S.C. Chao walked into Zhongnanhai and met with Jiang Zemin, who had recently taken over as CCP Central Committee General Secretary.
Later, when investigating the Zhao family's relationship with China, The New York Times disclosed that James S.C. Chao had met with Jiang Zemin at least six times.
This is the earliest publicly confirmed meeting so far.
Public materials do not fully record what the two discussed at the time, but the timing of this meeting itself already illustrates its importance.
in Beijing in 1989, foreign political and business figures did not easily gain entry into Zhongnanhai, let alone during such a special period.
Meeting the newly appointed top leader and appearing there at that time was in itself an extraordinary political privilege.
And while this timeline in China continued to extend upward, the U.S. side did not stop either.
Elaine Chao had already left the White House and continued her steady rise within the federal government.
McConnell, meanwhile, had concluded the adjustment period of a newly minted senator and began facing a series of major votes that would truly shape U.S. policy toward China for the coming decades.
After 1989, U.S. policy toward China entered a new decade.
Following the June Fourth incident, although the U.S. government announced a series of sanctions, another much larger issue was soon placed before Congress.
Should the United States continue to maintain trade relations with China on an ongoing basis?
If so, should human rights conditions in China be made a prerequisite?
Looking back from today, this was almost the most important debate in American politics throughout the 1990s.
Just as this debate began, the lives of Elaine Chao and McConnell started to intersect.
In 1989, Elaine Chao served as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation.
In 1991, she was appointed Director of the Peace Corps by President George H.W. Bush.
In just a few short years, she had grown from a White House Fellow into an important federal official, steadily rising within the Republican administration.
Around this same period—roughly 1991, note this timeline—through the introduction of mutual friends, Elaine Chao met Mitch McConnell, a U.S. senator from Kentucky.
Their relationship was kept very low-profile, and the outside world paid little attention to this romance.
Yet just as the two began dating, the U.S. Congress engaged in its first true head-on clash over China's most-favored-nation status.
In 1991, the Senate held an important vote on whether to continue granting most-favored-nation status to China.
Some lawmakers argued that if China did not make significant improvements in areas such as human rights and weapons proliferation, the United States should revoke this status.
McConnell cast a vote against it.
A year later, in 1992, a similar debate returned to the Senate.
President George H.W. Bush vetoed the relevant legislation, and the Senate subsequently held another vote on whether to override the presidential veto.
McConnell once again cast a negative vote, supporting the continuation of the U.S. government's trade policy toward China at the time.
Few people remember these two votes today.
On February 6, 1993, Elaine Chao and McConnell held their wedding at a small chapel on Capitol Hill in Washington.
The wedding was modest in scale, with only family and friends invited to attend.
That day happened to be President Reagan's birthday.
For Elaine Chao, who had once served in the Reagan administration and as a White House Fellow, and McConnell, who had long followed the political path of the Reagan administration, this date was clearly chosen with great care.
If Elaine Chao entered the U.S. administrative system in 1983, McConnell entered the U.S. legislative system in 1984, the Chao family's commercial interests began entering China's state-owned industrial system in 1988, and James S.C. Chao walked into Zhongnanhai in 1989, then by 1993, these previously separate timelines finally converged for the first time into a single family.
Beginning from this year, the Chao family's commercial structure, Elaine Chao's administrative resume, and McConnell's political career would no longer be merely independent stories of one another.
Everything that happened afterward had to be placed on the exact same coordinate timeline to be truly seen clearly.
On September 19, 2000, the U.S. Senate held a vote capable of altering China's destiny: whether to grant China permanent normal trade relations status. The voting result was eighty-three in favor and fifteen against. Republican Senator McConnell from Kentucky cast a vote in favor. Earlier in 1991 and 1992, he had already voted three times in the Senate against attaching human rights and arms control conditions to China's trade status. By 2000, he once again stood on the side of continuing to expand economic and trade relations with China. Permanent normal trade relations—prior to this, the United States had to review annually whether to continue granting normal trade status to China. Once changed to permanent, the most significant political obstacle facing China regarding the U.S. market was removed. This vote subsequently paved the way for China's accession to the World Trade Organization. On December 11, 2001, China officially became a member of the WTO. Thereafter, China's manufacturing sector secured a more stable U.S. market, and international capital orders and industrial chains began flooding into China on an unprecedented scale.
And just as the United States opened this trade door for China, Elaine Chao also entered the core circle of U.S. executive power. In January 2001, she was sworn in as Secretary of Labor in the George W. Bush administration, becoming the first Asian-American woman in U.S. history to enter the presidential cabinet. Counting from her first return to Shanghai Jiao Tong University with her father in 1987, 20 years had passed. Many people understand Chinese political infiltration and influence on the U.S. as trying to lobby someone only after they have already become a minister, congressman, or governor. But this approach is costly, high-risk, and easily attracts the attention of counterintelligence departments. A more effective approach is to establish a stable, long-term, and seemingly completely normal relationship with someone with political potential before they enter core power. It may start from universities, hometowns, alumni cultural exchanges, or from business cooperation, local visits, and charitable donations. At that time, this person did not have much power, and the relationship itself would not arouse vigilance. All that really needs to be done is to stay in touch and wait.
Later exposed plans brought this practice into complete view of the American public for the first time. Around 2011 to 2015, a Chinese woman named Fang Fang was active in local politics in California for a long time. She did not contact Washington bigwigs who already held national power, but rather young politicians in mayoral and local council campaigns. She acted as a matchmaker, attended events, assisted in fundraising, and expanded her social network. One of the most watched figures was Eric Swalwell, who later entered the U.S. Congress and served for a long time as a member of the House Intelligence Committee. After the Fang Fang incident was exposed, she briefly became one of the most typical cases in U.S. discussions on China's long-term deployment in local politics. To be clear, Swalwell himself was never accused of anything, and the House Ethics Committee's investigation did not result in any disciplinary action against him. The FBI later repeatedly reminded local officials and young politicians that the most patient work by the Chinese side is not necessarily targeting how much power is in hand today, but judging where a person might head 10 years from now. A congressman could become a governor, a young aide could enter the White House, and a student leader in university could become a member of Congress. For a regime that can arrange work in units of 10 or 20 years, waiting itself is an advantage.
Returning to 2001, after Elaine Chao became Secretary of Labor, she served for 8 years, completing both of George W. Bush's presidential terms. In the frequently changing U.S. cabinet, this kind of stability was unusual. She managed the nation's labor policies, employment standards, union relations, and retirement security, becoming one of the most recognizable Asian officials in the Republican administration. On the other side of the Pacific, the industrial expansion brought by China's entry into the World Trade Organization was just beginning. Around 2002, Foremost Group placed more and more large shipbuilding orders with the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding yard, which belonged to the Chinese state-owned shipbuilding system. Over the next 10 years, Foremost ordered more than a dozen 170,000-ton large bulk carriers here. James Chao was later dubbed by Chinese media as one of the customers who ordered the most new ships in China from the Americas. After the U.S. opened trade doors for China, the Chao family also entered a brand new expansion cycle. Elaine Chao's husband, McConnell, was also moving step by step closer to the center of power in the Senate.
In 2003, he was elected Senate Republican Whip, the No. 2 position for Republicans in the Senate, responsible for party voting, coordination, and agenda mobilization, and was called the person best at counting votes in the entire Senate. From this moment on, he was no longer just a senator from Kentucky, but an important member of the Republican comprehensive leadership. Four years later, in 2007, he went a step further and was elected Senate Republican Leader, holding the position until 2025—18 years in total—becoming the longest-serving Senate Republican Leader in U.S. history. In the U.S. power structure, this is not an ordinary party branch, because the United States does not have a ruling party leader in the sense of a parliamentary system. The Senate majority or minority leader determines the advancement pace of almost all major bills, personnel appointments, and voting arrangements for their party in the Senate. Whether the Republicans are in power or in opposition, he has always stood in the front row of the core of supreme power in the United States.
In 2008, a transfer occurred between the Zhao family and McConnell that was truly capable of changing the landscape of their wealth. The year prior, Elaine Chao's mother, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao, passed away. In the name of commemorating his late wife, Mr. Chao gifted a massive sum of assets to Elaine Chao and McConnell. According to the financial disclosure McConnell submitted to the U.S. Congress, the amount of this gift was between $5 million and $25 million. U.S. lawmakers are only required to report asset ranges in their financial disclosures, so the exact figure remains unknown to the public. However, even calculating at the minimum of $5 million, this was not an ordinary family inheritance; it was a massive fortune sufficient to cause a leap in a federal senator's wealth ranking. Before this money arrived, the McConnells' net worth was only in the low millions; after the gift, their family wealth quickly jumped to the tens of millions. McConnell thus entered the ranks of the wealthiest senators in the U.S. Senate. A career politician who built his start in Kentucky on votes now, for the first time, possessed a massive private fortune commensurate with his political status. And this wealth did not come from his salary, investments, or family inheritance, but from his father-in-law, James S.C. Chao.
At this point, let us turn our focus back to China. By the time Mr. Chao was able to provide such a sum, the cooperation between the Foremost Group and China's state-owned shipbuilding system had already been ongoing for 20 years. The Zhao family's fleet was continuously appreciating in value during the era of China's high-speed manufacturing expansion. China needed iron ore, grain, and energy, and Foremost's large bulk carriers were responsible for transporting these raw materials to Asia. Chinese state-owned shipyards built new vessels for Foremost, and the shipping profits supported the fleet's continued expansion in the Chinese market. The state-owned shipyards and the Zhao family's fleet had formed a commercial cycle capable of continuous operation. In the past, the wealth generated by this commercial cycle remained within the Zhao family, but after 2008, a portion of it entered the balance sheet of the McConnells directly through family gifting for the first time. The commercial strength the Zhao family accumulated in China and the private wealth of the family of the U.S. Senate Republican leader had, starting from this year, a clearly visible connection point.
Moreover, the Zhao family's relationship with China did not stop at shipbuilding and orders. In May 2009, Elaine Chao's sister, Angela Chao, joined the board of China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited as an independent director. We must clarify one point here: Angela Chao did not join the board of the parent company, China State Shipbuilding Corporation, but rather its listed subsidiary, China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited. This company focuses primarily on civilian shipbuilding, and Foremost has long been an important overseas client for Chinese state-owned shipyards. In other words, the Zhao family was no longer just standing outside the counter placing orders with Chinese state-owned enterprises; her family member had officially taken a seat on the board of this state-owned shipbuilding listed company and was participating in its corporate governance. This step changed the Zhao family's identity within the Chinese shipbuilding system. In the past, Foremost was merely a client; now, by making Angela a director, what was once a commercial relationship between a shipowner and a shipyard had evolved, and a member of the Zhao family had entered the internal structure of a Chinese state-owned enterprise. Angela's tenure as an independent director lasted from 2009 to 2010—not a long time—but this board seat itself already demonstrated that the relationship between the Zhao family and China's state-owned industrial system far exceeded that of a typical overseas client.
On January 19, 2011, these relationships scattered across Chinese shipyards, the U.S. Congress, and the Zhao family appeared in the same room for the first time. That evening, Obama hosted a state dinner at the White House for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao. More than 200 guests sat in the State Dining Room, including Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, former Presidents Carter and Clinton, and Henry Kissinger. From the business world, there were heads of Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Disney, and General Electric; from the cultural world, there were Yo-Yo Ma, Jackie Chan, and Barbra Streisand. This was not just a dinner; it was a complete list of American power, capital, and social elites presented by the U.S. government to China's top leader. On the official guest list released by the White House, there were two more names: one was former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, and the other was her father, James S.C. Chao. In the United States, they were the family of a former Republican cabinet secretary and the Senate Republican leader; in China, they were old alumni of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, important clients of the state-owned shipbuilding system, and overseas Chinese long treated with courtesy by the top leadership. Usually, these two identities existed separately on opposite sides of the Pacific, but that evening, they were arranged by the White House to be at the same state-level diplomatic ceremony for the first time.
Shifting the camera lens back from that state banquet to McConnell’s political track. From his vote in 2000 granting China permanent normal trade relations up until Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012, China rarely stood out as an isolated issue requiring a separate vote in the U.S. Senate. Bringing China into the fold for business was the mainstream consensus at the time. McConnell was firmly anchored within that consensus; he was a notoriously free-trade-oriented figure in Congress, with the Cato Institute giving him a trade stance rating of over 90%. He consistently opposed using tariffs and sanctions against trade partners. On the few occasions when China was actually brought to the floor for a vote, his choices, as we just mentioned, were very clear. In the same year the Chao father and daughter appeared at that state banquet—October 2011—the U.S. Senate voted on a bill directly targeting China known as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. It accused China of perpetually undervaluing the renminbi, giving its exports an unfair advantage, and paving the way for punitive tariffs against China. The bill ultimately passed the Senate by a vote of 63 to 35. The proposal was primarily driven by the Democrats, with even 16 Republican senators defecting to vote in favor. McConnell, serving as the Senate Minority Leader, voted against it. The bill was later suppressed in the House of Representatives and never became law. That same year, the Chao family sat at a state banquet honoring China’s top leader; that same year, the family’s son-in-law voted in the Senate against penalizing Chinese currency manipulation.
On September 25, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Chinese President Xi Jinping was on a state visit to the United States. On this day, he went to Capitol Hill to meet with the leadership of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the official press release issued afterward by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, several names were highlighted: Senate Majority Leader McConnell, Minority Leader Reid, House Speaker Boehner, and Minority Leader Pelosi. Ranked first among them once again was McConnell. This was a formal state visit, and Xi Jinping was meeting with the bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Congress. To treat this merely as routine diplomacy would mean missing a crucial layer of context: just months earlier, at the beginning of 2015, the Republican Party had regained control of the Senate majority, and McConnell had been promoted to Senate Majority Leader, becoming one of the most powerful figures in the U.S. legislative branch. When the state powers of China and the United States officially sat down at the same table, sitting at the very front of the American side was Elaine Chao's husband.
Around the time of Xi Jinping’s visit to the U.S., the ties between Foremost Group and China deepened further. In 2015, Foremost Group placed an order at a state-owned shipyard in Qingdao for two 180,000-ton cargo ships. Financing for these two ships was provided by the Export-Import Bank of China—a type of policy bank that issues loans backed by state credit. It contributed 37.5 million dollars, while Taiwan’s First Commercial Bank contributed another 37.5 million dollars, totaling 75 million. This marked the first-ever cooperation between cross-strait financial institutions, with the ship financing and construction carried out by Chinese state-owned shipyards, funded by a Chinese policy bank, while the owner of this fleet was the father-in-law of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader.
In 2017, Trump took office, and Elaine Chao returned to the cabinet as the Secretary of Transportation in the Trump administration. Also that year, her sister Angela Chao joined the board of the Bank of China as an independent director, while their brother-in-law McConnell was serving as the Senate Majority Leader. Looking at these three individuals in the year 2017, one was the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, the sister was a director of a Chinese state-owned bank, and the brother-in-law was the U.S. Senate Majority Leader—the family simultaneously advanced into the highest echelons of the state apparatus of two different countries.
It was also in this year that Elaine Chao planned an official visit to China in her capacity as Secretary of Transportation. Later investigations by the Department of Transportation's Inspector General revealed that her team had made extensive arrangements for the trip, intending to include her father and sister in several of the events. The itinerary also included visits to several schools that had received donations from the Chao family. This meant that the official visit of a serving U.S. cabinet secretary would simultaneously feature her father, her sister who served as a director of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, and organizations funded by her family on the exact same official itinerary. Some individuals within the Department of Transportation and the U.S. Embassy in China sensed something was amiss and hit the brakes, ultimately resulting in the cancellation of the visit. However, the matter did not end there.
In 2019, The New York Times published a lengthy investigative report that for the first time mapped out the connections between the Chao family’s shipping fleet, financing, cargo operations, and this political family into a single diagram. Most of Foremost Group’s ships were built in Chinese state-owned shipyards, banks wholly or partially owned by the Chinese government were involved in hundreds of millions of dollars of financing, and over 70% of its shipping operations headed to China. When this report was published, it coincided with the height of the U.S.-China trade war. On one side, the U.S. government was engaged in a comprehensive struggle with China; on the other side, the Transportation Secretary overseeing America's entire transit system had a natal family whose business was deeply embedded in China's state apparatus.
Two years later, in 2021, the U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General released a report that itemized instances of Elaine Chao using public resources for personal family matters during her tenure and referred the materials to the U.S. Department of Justice. The 2021 Inspector General's report clearly detailed how Elaine Chao had once directed Department of Transportation staff to contact corporate executives and university presidents to write forewords for her father's autobiography and assist with promotion. She even had the department maintain her father's award records and modify his Wikipedia page, tasking subordinates with handling private family affairs. Coupled with her 2017 plan to bring her father and sister on a visit to China, these incidents might not seem earth-shattering in isolation, but taken together, they point in a consistent direction. The materials were referred to the Department of Justice, which seemed to signal a serious move, but ultimately, after a review, the Department of Justice declined to prosecute, citing insufficient evidence. An Inspector General can state that your actions were improper, cause you embarrassment, and submit materials, but actually bringing someone to court requires a much higher standard.
The same logic applies to McConnell. The massive gifts he received from his father-in-law were not secrets unearthed later, but were laid out in the open through his own public financial disclosures. Precisely because they were public, U.S. media have been able to question his and the Chao family's interests in China, and whether he has been soft on China-related issues, for decades, round after round. Yet, questioning is one thing; public disclosure itself does not equate to illegality. A legal gift between family members does not automatically become bribery simply because the amount is large. So, what is the problem? It returns to that same line: the U.S. government saw these facts and investigated them, so why couldn't they take action in the end?
If you make a comparison, you will understand why many Chinese viewers find this difficult to comprehend. Suppose a minister in the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had a father-in-law who operated a shipping company highly dependent on the U.S. market, with ships built and expanded using funds from U.S. government-backed policy banks, and whose own sister served as a director at U.S. state-owned banks and military-industrial enterprises. Do you think such a person could pass the political vetting by the CCP Central Committee Organization Department and take a seat in the State Council? Long before they reached that position, a review surrounding their partnerships, family background, and political reliability would have already begun. In China, this is something that must be cleared before you take office, and it doesn't end after you pass; your overseas connections will be monitored long-term.
However, in the United States, the first gate Elaine Chao faced was not this kind of political reliability vetting. There is no law in the U.S. stating that if a person has deep ties to a foreign country, they cannot enter the cabinet. The President nominates, and the Senate confirms; as long as there are no explicit legal obstacles, is it allowed? It is primarily a political judgment, not a loyalty test. Doing business with China as a family, a father knowing Chinese leaders, and a sister serving as a director in China—none of these constitute crimes in the U.S., nor do they automatically disqualify her from serving as a minister. These are two completely different systems of political security: one screens people out before the exam, and the other relies on accountability after the fact.
So, what does U.S. law actually regulate? For an executive branch official like Elaine Chao, the most important provision is 18 U.S. Code § 208. Its core meaning is actually quite simple: if the power held by a government official directly affects whether a specific person or company can make money, then in principle, they cannot personally participate in the decision-making process regarding that matter. But the law draws this scope quite narrowly. The interested parties it defines mainly include the official themselves, their spouse, minor children, business partners, and the agency where the official works; parents and adult siblings are not automatically included. This leaves a loophole. As long as the Foremost Group relies on China, and as long as Elaine Chao herself and McConnell do not hold shares in Foremost, and the company remains controlled by her father, James S.C. Chao, and her adult sisters, then this relationship alone may not be enough to trigger the mandatory recusal obligations stipulated by U.S. law.
Even if you piece together Beijing's orders, loans, and honorary director seats for the Chao family, along with the Chao family's political influence in the U.S., into an uncomfortable relationship map, you are still missing the most critical step: pointing out which specific benefit was exchanged for which specific official act. There is a specific legal term for this: quid pro quo. One hand gives money, the other hand performs the service; the two ends must match. If the relationship map is clear but the exchange cannot be proven, then in a U.S. court, you cannot convict them.
If we break down this relationship and examine it piece by piece, you will understand why the law has such a hard time handling it. In China, providing legal trade-in-services orders is legal; Chinese banks providing loans for trade-in-services is legal; inviting Zhao Dingxin to dinner and giving him honors is legal; letting Angela Chao sit on the board of a state-owned enterprise is also legal in China. The Vice President meeting with Elaine Chao is even more of a legitimate diplomatic courtesy. If you take any of these one by one to an American court, none of them can be prosecuted individually. Meanwhile, McConnell as a congressional member operates under a different set of rules; Section 2, Clause 8 primarily restrains executive officials and does not apply to members of Congress in the same way. Members of Congress rely on financial disclosures, the Senate Code of Official Conduct, and special handling of gifts to relatives—for instance, the rules for money given by family versus outsiders are inherently different.
As for why he was able to sit in the position of Senate Republican Leader for so long, the answer isn't even in the law, but inside the political party. The party leader is not appointed by the President, nor elected by the whole citizenry, but elected by the party's own senators in a closed meeting. Kentucky voters decide if he is a senator, and Republican senators decide if he is the leader. There is no structure similar to the CCP Central Organization Department that would instantly strip him of all political qualifications just because your overseas connections are complicated.
It is the same with Zhang Xiaofan on this end. He entered the cabinet twice, and the Senate confirmed him through open public votes both times. His father's relationship with China and the family's shipping business in China were brought up during his confirmation hearings; they were not hidden secrets, and the senators knew all about this before still voting to approve him. Because in this logic of the United States, your family having business and relationships with a foreign country does not in itself constitute a legal reason for vetoing you. You must produce specific evidence of what he did wrong and which law he violated, rather than broadly saying his background is suspicious. This framework has its own logic: it prevents the ruling party from using a vague standard of loyalty to purge its political opponents. But at the same time, it leaves a price to pay—it is very good at catching a visible transaction, but struggles to handle something else: a complex relationship accumulated over decades through orders, financing, board seats, and high-level receptions time and time again.
So now, let us return to the word we started with at the beginning: back channel. If you are expecting a signed secret agreement, a remittance earmarked for a specific purpose, a black-and-white exchange, then this back channel does not exist—at least to this day, no one has been able to bring it to court. But if you ask another question: over the past 45 years, has Beijing turned a family step by step into a back channel influencing the American power structure? I think the answer is already laid out before everyone. From Deng Xiaoping reopening the country's doors, to Jiang Zemin building personal relationships, to the comprehensive expansion during the Hu Jintao era, and finally entering the Xi Jinping era, this relationship has not only not been interrupted, but has continuously upgraded. It spans four generations of CCP leaders and administration after administration in the United States. What it leaves behind is not a piece of criminal evidence, but a timeline. As for whether this timeline ever changed a specific American decision, perhaps no one will ever know; but today we at least see one thing clearly: American law excels at investigating a transaction, but may not necessarily be able to recognize the influence a country has cultivated over 45 years.