ICYMI — MeidasTouch News: Sununu Blasts China as the “Biggest Threat,” But He Was Cashing In On It the Whole Time

ICYMI — MeidasTouch News: Sununu Blasts China as the “Biggest Threat,” But He Was Cashing In On It the Whole Time

In Case You Missed It, new reporting from MeidasTouch News exposes U.S. Senate candidate John Sununu for making millions of dollars “sitting on boards and drawing paychecks from companies” with considerable ties to China and the Chinese Communist Party.

Despite his campaign trail rhetoric, Sununu “was a director and a personal investor” in a startup that partnered with a Chinese technology company whose smartphones his own brother, former Governor Chris Sununu, banned from New Hampshire state government devices and networks due to an “unacceptable level of cybersecurity risk.”

Sununu also held cushy board seats at a medical device maker that “cut American jobs while building manufacturing capacity in China,” a media company that “paid into a fund run by a former Communist Party official,” and an insurance marketplace that “gave a Chinese state-owned reinsurer a bigger platform to underwrite Beijing’s Belt and Road ambitions.”

Read more about Sununu’s financial ties to Chinese companies and the Chinese Communist Party below:

MeidasTouch News: Sununu Blasts China as the “Biggest Threat,” But He Was Cashing In On It the Whole Time

John Sununu, running for his old Senate seat in New Hampshire’s 2026 Republican primary against Scott Brown, has built part of his comeback pitch on being a China hawk.
[...] But for more than a decade while he was out of office, Sununu’s business career ran in the opposite direction, style-wise if not literally: sitting on boards and drawing paychecks from companies that partnered with a Chinese telecom giant flagged by U.S. intelligence, shipped American manufacturing jobs to China, financed a media venture with a fund run by a former Chinese Communist Party official, and helped a Chinese state-owned insurer expand its footprint inside one of the world’s most influential financial markets.
[...] Sununu was a director and a personal investor in Afiniti, an artificial-intelligence startup that used AI to power call centers around the world, founded by Zia Chishti.
[...] In September 2017, Afiniti signed a partnership deal with Huawei Technologies, embedding Afiniti’s AI into Huawei’s telephony platform so Huawei’s global clients could roll it out faster.
[...] Huawei was not just another telecom vendor. U.S. intelligence and congressional officials had already spent years warning that the company’s equipment posed a national security threat. A 2012 congressional investigation concluded Huawei’s gear could be used “for spying or crippling” American telecommunications networks, effectively shutting the company out of major U.S. carrier contracts. “Huawei can act as an arm of the Chinese state,” CSIS senior vice president James Lewis told NBC News in 2019, warning that installing its equipment “you become vulnerable to Chinese espionage” (NBC News).
In February 2018, the heads of the CIA, FBI, NSA and the director of national intelligence told the Senate Intelligence Committee they would not recommend that any American use Huawei products or services. “We’re deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks,” then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified, saying it gave Huawei “the capacity to exert pressure or control,” to “maliciously modify or steal information,” and to “conduct undetected espionage” (CNBC).
The warnings were bipartisan and, eventually, acted on close to home. In December 2022, Sununu’s own brother, then-Gov. Chris Sununu, signed an executive order banning Huawei and ZTE telecommunications hardware and smartphones, along with apps from Tencent and Alibaba, from New Hampshire state government devices and networks, citing “an unacceptable level of cybersecurity risk” (Union Leader).
Sununu joined the board of Boston Scientific, a Massachusetts-based medical device maker, in March 2009. In July 2011, while he sat on that board, the company’s directors approved a five-year, $150 million investment to expand Boston Scientific’s commercial presence in China, including “the establishment of a local, wholly owned manufacturing facility focused on serving Chinese market needs” and a new training center for Chinese healthcare providers. The company said it planned to grow its Chinese workforce from roughly 200 employees to more than 1,200 (PR Newswire).
That same week, Boston Scientific announced it would cut up to 1,400 American jobs through layoffs and attrition, a restructuring it said would save the company more than $200 million, alongside a $1 billion stock buyback program (WBUR).
[...] Sununu joined Time Warner Cable’s board of directors in February 2009 and went on to earn more than $1.7 million in total board compensation through 2015, according to the company’s own disclosures. In June 2013, while Sununu served as a director, Time Warner announced a strategic investment partnership with China Media Capital, a Chinese fund focused on media and entertainment, aimed at capitalizing on China’s expanding demand for digital content (Hollywood Reporter).
China Media Capital was chaired by Li Ruigang, who had served as deputy secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai before returning to head Shanghai Media Group.
In January 2019, Lloyd’s of London appointed Sununu to its governing Council for a three-year term, [...]
While Sununu sat on that governing body, a Chinese state-owned company used its position inside the Lloyd’s marketplace to advance Beijing’s signature foreign-policy initiative. China Re — described by its own website as “the only state-owned reinsurance group in China,” co-founded by China’s Ministry of Finance — had acquired the Lloyd’s syndicate Chaucer for roughly $940 million in 2018. In June 2021, Chaucer used that platform to launch a “Belt and Road Consortium” at Lloyd’s, offering up to $400 million in capacity specifically to insure Chinese state infrastructure projects against political violence risk. [...]
Sununu is asking New Hampshire voters to trust him to confront Beijing in the Senate. His record on corporate boards over the past 15 years tells a different story: an AI company he invested in and helped govern partnered with a firm U.S. intelligence considered an extension of the Chinese state; a medical device maker he oversaw cut American jobs while building manufacturing capacity in China; a media company he served paid into a fund run by a former Communist Party official; and an insurance marketplace he helped govern gave a Chinese state-owned reinsurer a bigger platform to underwrite Beijing’s Belt and Road ambitions. Sununu’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment on this reporting.

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