California’s two-term treasurer, Fiona Ma, has met with high-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials and intelligence personnel dozens of times in the last several decades, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.
During these many meetings in the U.S. and China, the Democratic frontrunner in California’s 2026 lieutenant governor race has introduced American lawmakers to Chinese intelligence officials and also repeatedly presented awards to CCP members and influence operatives, according to DCNF translations of Chinese government and state media reports.
“We really should be more integrated,” Ma said during a 2023 interview with state-run media outlet CGTN. “The more that we can get along, work together, I think would create more peace in the world as well as better economic opportunities for both countries.”
“CCP elite capture is alive and well,” Peter Schweizer, New York Times bestselling author of “Red Handed,” told the DCNF. “Any politician who continues to engage in these types of behavior is not a target, but is complicit in CCP activities. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.”
Ma’s ties to China recently came under scrutiny following an April Politico report revealing that in September 2023 she offered to help secure U.S. internships and employment opportunities for students attending the Pegasus California School, which was founded in the coastal city of Qingdao by Ma’s campaign finance committee chair. Pegasus’ students, who are Chinese nationals, have allegedly received unlawful California high school diplomas through a partnership with the Val Verde Unified School District, according to a 2026 Riverside County Office of Education audit of the district, which did not accuse Ma of wrongdoing.
