Commentary

American Socialists Cozying Up to the Chinese Communist Party

Posted on by Bill McCarthy

The Democratic Socialists of America has a long-running soft spot for Beijing that has hardened into open courtship. Their national platform calls for ending “nationalistic posturing” toward China, rejecting a new Cold War, and seeking cooperation instead of confrontation. That is the polite public language. Behind the scenes, the organization’s International Committee and China Working Group have spent years cultivating contacts with Chinese Communist Party officials, organizing trips to the mainland, holding seminars that recycle Beijing’s talking points, and treating the survival of “Chinese socialism” as a global priority.

In late July 2026, roughly a dozen DSA members and International Committee figures signed a public pledge from the group Friends of Socialist China. The document commits them to “support, defend and build understanding of Chinese socialism.” It describes China as the most important force for multipolarity and a new international economic order, a leader against climate breakdown, and a model whose continued existence matters for all of humanity. This is not fringe chatter. It is activists inside America’s largest socialist organization declaring solidarity with the ruling party of the United States’ primary strategic competitor.

The Pattern of Engagement

Internal meeting minutes obtained and reported in 2025–2026 show the trajectory. DSA members discussed how “China wants to interface with the DSA.” They planned itineraries, hired local help, and sought deeper connections with the Communist Party of China. Delegations traveled to China for anniversary events and provincial visits hosted by party schools and foreign affairs offices. Advice from aligned groups such as Code Pink was taken seriously: stay out of the “weeds” on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang. Focus on poverty alleviation and multipolarity. Monthly “political education” sessions presented “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” in glowing terms, complete with claims about Chinese democracy and the superiority of state control over private enterprise.

Official DSA statements consistently frame U.S. policy toward China as imperialist escalation. They oppose legislation aimed at competing with Beijing, condemn “Sinophobia,” and treat military deterrence in the Pacific as warmongering. The organization has normalized the idea that criticizing the CCP is a greater sin than the CCP’s actual record: mass surveillance, forced labor allegations in Xinjiang, the crushing of Hong Kong autonomy, and explicit threats against Taiwan.

Which Politicians Share the Line

DSA-endorsed and DSA-member politicians operate in the same ideological neighborhood even if they rarely recite the full pro-Beijing script in public. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a DSA member whose rise has put the organization’s foreign-policy instincts under a brighter light. Progressive members of Congress such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib have long opposed what they call militarism and “Cold War” thinking on China. Their voting records and rhetoric prioritize de-escalation, reduced defense spending, and skepticism of alliances aimed at containing Beijing. Newer DSA-backed candidates in safe Democratic districts follow the same pattern: domestic economic radicalism paired with an anti-interventionist foreign policy that treats American power as the primary problem and Chinese power as either neutral or progressive.

Few elected officials have signed the explicit “support and defend Chinese socialism” pledge. They do not need to. The organizational culture that elevates them already treats multipolarity under Chinese leadership as preferable to American primacy. When the choice is between robust deterrence of the CCP and treating Beijing as a partner in “global justice,” the DSA-aligned politicians reliably tilt toward the latter.

The Reality Check

China is not a socialist workers’ paradise. It is a one-party surveillance state that runs the world’s largest prison camps for religious and ethnic minorities, steals intellectual property on an industrial scale, militarizes the South China Sea, and openly prepares for forced reunification with Taiwan. Its economic model is state-directed capitalism with Chinese characteristics, not democratic socialism. American socialists who treat the CCP as a progressive ally are not practicing anti-imperialism. They are practicing selective blindness that happens to serve the interests of a rival great power.

The DSA has not issued a formal resolution declaring war on the United States in favor of Beijing. It has done something more corrosive: normalized the idea that America’s foremost competitor is a model to be defended rather than a threat to be managed. That is the nonsense. The politicians who rise under the DSA banner absorb it by osmosis. Voters who think democratic socialists are only interested in Medicare for All should look harder at the foreign policy they actually practice.

Help American Liberty PAC in our mission to elect conservatives and save our nation. Support – American Liberty PAC