Recent revelations that the University of California received massive donations from organisations linked to China’s Communist Party — including a $220 million investment in Berkeley’s joint research project with Tsinghua University — may have elicited a harsh reaction from the Trump administration. But it should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the state’s increasingly dependent relationship with China.

For a generation, California’s political and economic elites have been eager to abase themselves for Chinese money. This started under Jerry Brown, who assiduously worked to maintain close ties, but his successor, Gavin Newsom, has gone further, welcoming links with groups controlled by the Communist Party.

Newsom, of course, was the first US Governor to visit China in four years. In 2023, the Governor went to Beijing to kiss the ring and explore “collaboration” with the Communist regime, pleading for statewide carveouts from China’s tariffs. Then a month later, Xi Jinping visited San Francisco, where Newsom and the rest of the state establishment gave him a standing ovation.

This royal treatment might seem odd considering how critical Newsom has been of other “dictators”. Over the last eight years, the California governor has repeatedly attacked Trump over his alleged threat to democracy. But he remains curiously silent on the world’s most powerful — and fascistic — authoritarian regime. To this day, the California Governor has continued to send fraternal missions to China, partnering with organisations controlled, like much of everything, by Communist Party operatives. Clearly, there are some double standards here.

Such subservience makes sense given an economic relationship that already resembles a classic colonial tie. China runs a roughly $107 billion trade surplus with California, and the disparities in such things as electronic machinery are immense. California fares better with services, notably software and other tech licenses as well as universities, but this only amounts to $5 billion.

This dependency may alarm some in Washington, but it conforms to the preferred style of many California progressives. Free trade plays to the state’s deindustrialisation and climate agendas, raising prices inexorably on California companies and households. Even during the Biden years, California greens opposed tariffs on Chinese EVs and some have sought to “take out” Tesla, the only EV-maker producing in the state.

Another concerning element is how Chinese political influence in California resembles patterns seen in places like Australia and Canada. The CCP got very close to the state’s leading politicians, including the late Dianne Feinstein, whose driver was reportedly an agent, and Congressman Eric Swalwell, who had a close connection with an alleged Chinese femme fatale agent. The rot, for all we know, could run much deeper.

California’s entanglement with China reflects a broader pattern of economic dependency and political accommodation that raises serious questions about the state’s values and strategic priorities. While California leaders often champion democratic ideals and environmental progressivism, their willingness to court and appease an authoritarian regime with an abysmal human rights record suggests a troubling double standard. As geopolitical tensions mount, the state may soon have to reckon with the consequences of its deepening ties to a government that views influence abroad as a tool for internal control at home.

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Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute, the University of Texas at Austin.

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