Earlier this month, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal published a curious article about Wendi Deng Murdoch, Murdoch’s ex-wife. According to the paper, United States counter-intelligence officials had warned White House senior adviser Jared Kushner that Deng might be using her friendship with him and his wife, Ivanka Trump, to advance Chinese interests in the U.S. Of particular concern was a planned $100 million construction project in Washington, D.C., which would have included a 70-foot tower that officials worried could be used for surveillance. The warning, reported the Journal, was part of a larger effort in early 2017 by national-security officials to alert Kushner that Chinese nationals and other people linked to China, like Deng, might target him as part of an influence operation. (A spokesperson for Deng told the Journal that she “has no knowledge of any F.B.I. concerns or other intelligence agency concerns relating to her or her associations” and no knowledge of the D.C. project. Neither she, nor Kushner, have been accused of any wrongdoing.)

Some government officials also flagged Kushner’s meetings with Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., according to The New Yorker. Ever since Henry Kissinger introduced the two during the election campaign, they have met multiple times, reportedly raising concerns that Beijing has attempted to use Kushner’s ready access to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, to sway policy. In past administrations, such meetings were attended by “a retinue of China specialists and note-takers.” Kushner’s meetings, however, were more intimate. On at least one occasion, he met with Cui alone. Other encounters with Cui included ex-national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who has since pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I. agents about his contacts with Russian officials.

From Cui’s perspective, the meetings seem to have been fruitful. Following a discussion on February 1, 2017 (the same day Ivanka took their daughter, Arabella, to a lunar New Year celebration at the Chinese Embassy), Kushner persuaded Trump to drop his threats to abandon the “One China” policy, which affirms mainland control over Taiwan. He also passed along proposals from Cui to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who made his first official trip to Beijing in March.

Kushner’s decision to exclude top China specialists from the meetings was met with misgiving because his lack of political experience was thought to make him vulnerable to Chinese demands. “He went in utterly unflanked by anyone who could find Beijing on a map. It was a dream come true. They couldn’t believe he was so compliant,” a former member of the National Security Council told The New Yorker. Some officials who were uninvited to the meetings apparently resorted to scouring intelligence reports to see how Chinese diplomats detailed their dealings with Kushner. (A spokesperson for Kushner told the outlet that none of the specialists in the region told him “he shouldn’t be doing it the way he was doing it at the time.”)

Others worried that even if Kushner was well prepared for the meetings himself, the unusual setup might have given the Chinese unnecessary leverage. “There’s nobody else there in the room to verify what was said and what wasn’t, so the Chinese can go back and claim anything,” a former senior U.S. official who was briefed on the meetings said. “I’m sorry, Jared—do you think your background is going to allow you to be able to outsmart the Chinese ambassador?” Kushner, the official explained, “is actually pretty smart. He just has limited life experiences. He was acting with naïveté.”