Senior employees at three firms the Pentagon recently designated as "Chinese military companies" funneled roughly $2.6 million into Democratic political committees between 2020 and 2024, a Fox News Digital review of campaign finance filings found. The companies, Alibaba, Baidu, and BYD, were added to the Defense Department's 1260H list on June 8, a designation that formally identifies them as firms operating in the United States on behalf of, or with ties to, the People's Liberation Army.
The recipients read like a roster of the Democratic Party's most prominent figures: former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Adam Schiff, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the Democratic National Committee itself.
None of them responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Fox News Digital reached the offices of Biden, Harris, Schiff, Pelosi, Newsom, and the DNC on Sunday. As of publication, not one had replied. BYD, contacted separately on Monday, also stayed silent.
The numbers are not trivial. Biden-linked committees and joint fundraising vehicles took in roughly $850,000 from employees at the trio of firms between 2020 and 2024. The DNC received approximately $500,000. Harris-linked committees brought in about $140,000. Various state Democratic parties collected five-figure sums from employees at Baidu, BYD, and Alibaba.
Then there is Newsom. State campaign finance records show the California governor accepted $50,000 from a BYD executive. His administration later awarded BYD a contract, a sequence that raises obvious questions about the relationship between the donation and the deal.
The contributions arrived through direct donations, earmarked contributions, and donations to joint-fundraising committees, standard channels that are perfectly legal under federal election law. But legality and propriety are not the same thing, a distinction that matters when the donors' employers now sit on a Pentagon blacklist created to protect American national security.
The 1260H list exists because Congress demanded it. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Pentagon to publish an annual roster of companies it identifies as Chinese military companies operating directly or indirectly inside the United States. The most recent list names 188 entities.
A Defense Department spokesperson described the process plainly: "After the Department conducted its due diligence, it identified 188 entities that meet the statutory requirement for inclusion on the most recent 1260H List."
The designation carries concrete consequences, at least for the Pentagon. Starting June 30, the Defense Department will be barred from directly contracting with listed companies. It is already banned from contracting with firms that lobby on behalf of 1260H-listed entities. By 2027, the ban expands to block indirect procurement through supply chain intermediaries.
What the designation does not do, however, is function as a traditional sanction. Americans can still do business with these companies. That gap is worth noting, and worth closing, if lawmakers are serious about the threat they claim to recognize. Democrats have already shown a willingness to let national security tools lapse when political gamesmanship takes priority.
All three firms dispute the designation. Alibaba's spokeswoman insisted the company is "not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy," adding, "We will take all available legal action against attempts to misrepresent our company." In an SEC filing shortly after its addition to the list, Alibaba stated that inclusion "will not affect the Group's ability to conduct business as usual in the United States or anywhere in the world because the Group does not do business related to U.S. military procurement."
Baidu's spokesperson was equally emphatic: "We categorically reject the inclusion of Baidu on the list, and there is no credible justification for adding Baidu to the list. The suggestion that Baidu is a military company is entirely baseless."
BYD said nothing at all.
The denials are expected. But they sit uneasily alongside each company's documented relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and its apparatus. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2017 that Alibaba assisted the Chinese government in surveillance efforts targeting dissidents. Chinese state media reported in 2018 that Alibaba had a large CCP presence within it. In 2019, Reuters sources inside the company said Alibaba had developed an app designed to increase ideological alignment with Xi Jinping.
Baidu's ties run through official channels. China's Ministry of Science and Technology named Baidu part of the country's "national team" for AI development in 2017. The CCP's National Development and Reform Commission appointed Baidu to lead China's first national lab on deep learning technologies. Baidu also reportedly assists the Chinese government in censorship operations.
BYD's founder and CEO, Wang Chuanfu, is described as a member of the Chinese Communist Party and an ally of Xi Jinping. Bloomberg reported as early as 2015 that the Chinese government was heavily subsidizing BYD. Pelosi has drawn scrutiny before for her financial entanglements, but the broader pattern here involves an entire party apparatus accepting money linked to firms with deep CCP connections.
Michael Lucci, CEO of the national security organization State Armor, framed the issue in terms the Pentagon itself uses. He told Fox News Digital:
"The reason the Pentagon's list of sanctioned CCP companies keeps expanding is because the Chinese Communist Party imposes a 'civil-military fusion' mandate upon all Chinese companies, forcing them to assist in modernizing China's military with the goal of defeating America."
Civil-military fusion is not a vague academic concept. It is official Chinese policy, a doctrine that erases the line between private enterprise and military capability. Under that framework, every Chinese company of significant size operates within a system designed to serve the PLA's strategic objectives.
Lucci did not hold back about the political implications: "American politicians should no longer accept campaign cash from any Chinese companies. Politicians who have been taking campaign cash from companies like Baidu, Alibaba and BYD now realize they were supported by blacklisted Chinese Military Companies." He added flatly: "They all end up working to support the PLA. They should all be cut off from U.S. politics."
That is a reasonable position. And it is one that the silence from every named Democratic office only reinforces. Pelosi has shown a pattern of dismissing uncomfortable questions rather than answering them directly. The refusal of Biden, Harris, Schiff, Newsom, and the DNC to respond follows the same playbook.
The 1260H list first appeared in June 2021, during the Biden administration. The companies now designated were not on that original list, they were added later, as the Pentagon expanded its review. But the underlying concern about CCP-linked firms operating inside the United States, and the employees of those firms writing checks to American politicians, is not new. It has been visible for years to anyone paying attention.
The question is whether Democratic leaders were paying attention, or whether they simply did not care, so long as the money kept arriving.
Consider the timeline. Between 2020 and 2024, $2.6 million flowed from employees of these three firms into Democratic coffers. During that same period, reports about Alibaba's surveillance work, Baidu's role in Chinese AI strategy, and BYD's CCP subsidies were all publicly available. The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Chinese state media had all published relevant information. None of it was secret.
Yet the money was accepted. And when Fox News Digital came calling for an explanation, every office went dark. Pelosi has been willing to weigh in on other Democrats' controversies, but on this one, her own financial entanglement with a Pentagon-designated Chinese military company, silence.
Several questions hang over this story. Which specific executives at Alibaba, Baidu, and BYD made these donations, and to which committees? What was the exact timeline of Newsom's $50,000 donation from a BYD executive relative to the state contract his administration awarded the company? Did any employees of these firms also donate to Republican committees, and if so, how much?
The campaign finance filings are public records. The answers exist. The fact that the politicians involved have chosen not to provide them voluntarily tells its own story.
Alibaba has stated its intent to take "all available legal action" against its inclusion on the 1260H list. Whether that challenge succeeds or fails, it does not change the fact that Democratic leaders took millions from employees of firms the Pentagon now says are connected to the Chinese military, and have offered the public exactly zero explanation.
When the Pentagon tells you a company works for the PLA, and your campaign took its employees' money, the least you owe voters is an answer. Silence is not accountability. It is a confession that you have no good one.
