Angela Chao, a shipping company chief executive and member of a family prominent in U.S. politics and business dealings with China, died in 2016. A car accident occurred on Sunday. Texas. She was 50 years old.
Her family confirmed her death. Details about the accident were not immediately available.
Mr. Chao had been chairman and chief executive officer of the Chao family's Foremost Group, a global bulk carrier operator, since 2018. The vessels are used to transport goods such as iron ore and soybeans.
She was the sister of Elaine Chao, who served as Secretary of Transportation under former President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush. Elaine Chao is married to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
The Chao family, led by James S.C. Chao, father of Angela and Elaine Chao, stands out because of its deep political and commercial ties in both the United States and China. Mr. Chao fled mainland China to Taiwan in the late 1940s with the defeated Kuomintang Party. He immigrated to the United States in his 1958 and helped found the Foremost Group in 1964. He then developed a close relationship with Jiang Zemin, a former schoolmate from Shanghai who rose to become China's president and died in 2022.
Mr. Chao, along with his father, both American citizens, were one of the few foreigners to serve on the board of one of China's largest companies. Both men were directors of a Chinese state-owned shipbuilding holding company. The shipbuilding company is a state-owned company that manufactures ships for the Chinese military, as well as Foremost Group and other customers. Mr. Chao is also a former director of the Bank of China, the largest lender to shipbuilding companies, and a former vice chairman of the China Council on Foreign Trade, a promotional group set up by the Chinese government.
“Although she was born in America, she never forgot her roots and throughout her life helped build bridges of understanding between East and West,” Chao said in a statement about her daughter.
“Losing her at such a young age is something we never imagined and our entire family is heartbroken,” he said.
The youngest of six daughters, Angela Chao was born in 1973 in Syosset, New York, on Long Island's North Shore, and grew up in Harrison, New York, a wealthy town in Westchester County. She completed her studies in three years, graduating from Harvard University in 1994.
After a brief stint in finance at Smith Barney, he joined the family business in 1996 and went on to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School. As CEO of Foremost Group, Chao emphasized ordering new, more environmentally friendly vessels that can burn alternative fuels.
“From an early age growing up, I was always fascinated by what my father did,” she said in a 2019 interview.
“I've always been proud to be part of this tradition,” she added.
The Chao family's business ties to China gained attention when Elaine Chao served as transportation secretary under President Trump, who imposed broad tariffs on imports from China. A 2021 report by the Department of Transportation's inspector general said Elaine Chao used office staff to help her family, but two Department of Justice departments declined to conduct a criminal investigation.
Angela Chao denied in a 2019 interview that Foremost was more focused on China than most dry bulk carriers in a world where China is by far the leading manufacturer.
She was an advisory director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's President's Council. She was also a founding member of the Asian American Foundation Against Discrimination, Defamation, and Violence Against Asian Americans and co-chaired its education committee.
Chao married American investor Bruce Wasserstein shortly before her death in 2009. She later married Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist from Austin, Texas, who is also part owner of the Boston Celtics.
Journalist Larry Weymouth said he met Chao around the time of Wasserstein's death, comforting his new friend over dinner in Manhattan.
“In this tough town, she was the real deal,” said Ms. Weymouth, the daughter of the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. “She got along with everyone.”
In addition to her father and Elaine Chao, Chao is survived by her husband and three sisters, a 3-year-old son.
Qiao Shiyi contributed to research.
