EXC: Top Zoom Investor Funded Chinese Communist Party-Linked Artificial Intelligence Program

A top investor in video conferencing platform Zoom also invested over $45 million in a Chinese Communist Party-run artificial intelligence program along with other party-linked companies designated as “tools of the Chinese government” by the U.S. State Department. Zoom – which has seen record growth due to the coronavirus-fueled shift to online meetings – has been under fire for its reportedly close ties to China. These fears have caused the Department of Defense and Senate to restrict usage and for good reason: Zoom reroutes data through China for non-China users and overwhelmingly uses encryption keys from China-based servers. Adding to this long list of Chinese ties, a principal investor in Zoom is Hillhouse Capital Management Limited.

Headquartered in Beijing and founded by Chinese national Zhang Lei, the company has a nearly billion-dollar stake in the company, comprising almost 10 percent of the investment group’s entire portfolio. Hillhouse used to own over 12 percent of Zoom but recently sold a portion of its shares to decrease its stake to over two percent, still remaining one of the top ten investors in Zoom. Acquiring stakes in prominent American and CCP companies is Hillhouse’s modus operandi. The firm is simultaneously invested in American companies Facebook, Amazon, and Uber alongside CCP-linked companies Tencent and Alibaba. Tencent has been described the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting it retains “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.” It also provides “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” as part of the CCP’s broader crusade “to shape the world consistent with its authoritarian model.” And its CEO has direct CCP links, currently serving as a Congressional Deputy and a member of the premier CCP body, the Standing Committee.

Hillhouse also helps manage finances for some of the most elite American universities such as Stanford and Zheng is personally involved in some of these entities. He’s a Yale Board of Trustees member who chairs the university’s Asia Development Council, an alumni group that is keen to “strengthen Yale’s ties in Asia.” Zheng is also a member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council, a “high-level cross-sectoral advisory body set up by HKSAR Government.” He’s a governing board member of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a CCP-funded propaganda initiative chaired by Tung Chee Hwa, the vice-chairman of CCP advisory body the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a former head of Hong Kong. The foundation is a registered Chinese foreign agent that often targets American universities with offers to fund policy research, high-level dialogues, and exchange programs. Many schools, however, have divested from CUSEF in light of these ties. But Zheng’s CCP ties run even deeper.

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