The Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba, has been spending more than $2.5 million on lobbying efforts in the United States and associates of Alibaba have also been partisan spenders, according to a report from Just The News. Since 2014, political donations by associates of Alibaba have heavily swung to the Democratic Party. In the 2020 election alone Democratic candidates received more than $1.2 million from affiliates of Alibaba and in 2022 the Democratic National Committee Service Corporation received $135,500.
In Communist China there is no ultimate separation between private business and the state. As Jim Carafano, an expert at The Heritage Foundation, put it in 2020, “Let’s be clear: every company in China works for the Chinese Communist Party. They are required, by law, to turn over any information they can access, whenever the Party asks for it. It’s not just a matter of cooperating with the regime or being friendly to it. They must take and obey all orders from the regime, and that includes handing over any American data they touch, regardless of privacy commitments, legal concerns or respect for intellectual property.”
All this means is that the sensitive information one gives the Chinese company (or indeed any Chinese company) can end up in the hands of the Communist Party. The scale of the stolen data is enormous. As William Evanina, the former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, made clear in Congress when he testified that “It is estimated that 80 percent of American adults have had all of their personal data stolen by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], and the other 20 percent most of their personal data.”
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The Democratic Party has had a number of scandals of improper financing of their candidates in the past. In 1996 there was a financing scandal when the Democratic National Committee was charged with improperly taking foreign money and was forced to give back $2.8 million. Some of that money came from China. As one Chinese general reportedly put it, “We really like your president [Bill Clinton]. We hope he will be reelected. I will give you $300,000 U.S. dollars. You can give it to . . . your president and the Democratic party.”
One of Alibaba’s influential lobbying firms, Mercury, has a lot of ties to the Democrat Party via its leadership as Just The News reports. Its leadership includes a former communications adviser for the Democratic National Committee, a former member of Governor Cuomo (D-NY)’s team, and a former chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Affiliates of Alibaba have also donated to Republican campaigns. In 2022, the leading individual recipient of their money was Liz Cheney (R-WY) whom they lavished $5,400 on according to Open Secrets. Cheney was an estranged member of the Republican Party who was critical of former President Donald Trump. She was beat in a landslide election in the Republican primary by Harriet Hageman.
What Alibaba does is not out of the norm for a Chinese company. As Dr. Lee Edwards, an expert with The Heritage Foundation, writes, “Chinese companies acknowledge spending $3.8 million on federal lobbying in 2017, and a total of $20.2 million since 2000.” Given what we know about the public-private fusion in Communist China, all this leads one to wonder whether letting a foreign power that is perceived as hostile to American interests lobby in the United States is wise.
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