Republican Vivek Ramaswamy did business with entities tied to the Chinese Communist Party. He’s now running for Ohio governor as an opponent of China and communism.
Ramaswamy founded the biotechnology company Roivant Sciences in 2014 and served as its CEO until 2021. The company develops medicines through specialized subsidiaries.
One of those subsidiaries is the Shanghai-based Sinovant, launched in 2017. The company was partially financed by CITIC Private Equity (CITICPE), an investment firm that is part of a web of state-owned enterprises in China that are under the sway of the Chinese Communist Party.
A state-owned entity in China can be wholly or partially owned by the government. The Chinese Communist Party wields influence over these entities by setting national economic priorities, making leadership appointments, and setting strategic directions.
When Sinovant launched, CITICPE was the investment arm of CITIC Securities, which was an offshoot of the state-owned CITIC Group.
CITICPE spun off from CITIC Securities in 2018 and became CPE, but the firms remained tied through jointly managed investment funds, according to the Prague Security Studies Institute. CITICPE also retained its longtime CEO, Lieu Lefei, who is a prominent “princeling,” a term ascribed to the children of high-ranking communist officials.
Lefei’s father, Liu Yunshan, was reportedly involved in censoring online information about the Uyghur ethnic cleansing campaign.
Ramaswamy partnered with CITICPE again in 2018 to launch Cytovant Biotechnology, a Sinovant subsidiary that is also domiciled in China.
A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report from 2021 identified national security concerns involving Pacific Networks and ComNet, two subsidiaries of CITIC Group. This followed previous reporting in 2017 that CITIC Group had provided Iran with a $10 billion line of credit. The U.S. government designates Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Roivant divested from Cytovant in July 2022. As of 2023, Ramaswamy was still the sixth-largest shareholder in Roivant.
Earlier this month, Ramaswamy said his 2026 race is “probably the most important election for governor” Ohio has ever seen and that his victory would signal “success over communism, success over socialism.”
Ramaswamy’s Democratic opponent is former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton. Recent polls show a neck-and-neck race.
