The woman leading the Democratic pack in California’s 2026 lieutenant governor race has spent decades cultivating relationships with some of Beijing’s most strategically significant operatives — and a bombshell investigation is now pulling those ties into full public view.
Fiona Ma, who has served two terms as California’s state treasurer, held documented meetings with officials connected to the Chinese Communist Party and a Chinese government intelligence apparatus no fewer than 30 times across the past several decades, according to an investigation conducted by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The findings draw on translations of Chinese government records and state media reports, and they paint a detailed picture of sustained, high-level engagement between a sitting American official and foreign intelligence-linked personnel.
Those meetings were not passive. Ma actively introduced American lawmakers to Chinese intelligence officials during some of those encounters, according to DCNF translations.
On at least 10 separate occasions since 2018, she personally handed out commendations on behalf of her office to CCP members and individuals connected to Chinese influence operations.
The intelligence agency appearing most frequently throughout Ma’s documented engagements is the United Front Work Department — the UFWD.
The House Select Committee on the CCP has characterized the agency’s work as a “blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations,” describing it as a tool Beijing deploys to reshape foreign policy and extract advanced foreign technology from Western nations.
Ma’s engagement with UFWD-linked figures stretches back more than two decades.
While working in 1999 as a legislative aide to the late California Democratic Sen. John Burton, Ma began ferrying U.S. lawmakers into China, according to China Daily, a Chinese state publication.
One of her co-leaders on that first delegation also held a formal advisory post with the Chinese government in Sichuan province, per DCNF translations.
That same advisor resurfaced on multiple subsequent trips Ma organized for California lawmakers after she entered public office in 2002.
A December 2014 trade delegation to Sichuan province stands out: Ma brought more than 20 members of the California State Legislature face-to-face with Chinese government and UFWD officials during that visit, DCNF translations of Chinese government announcements show.
The frequency of those contacts did not slow after Ma ascended to the state’s top financial post. Since her January 2019 inauguration as California treasurer, she met with Chinese government and CCP intelligence figures more than 20 times — including three separate meetings conducted on Chinese soil in 2023 alone.
One of those commendations went to the chairman of the Chinese People’s Association For Friendship With Foreign Countries, an organization the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center has warned “sought to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote [China’s] global agenda.”
The group is a UFWD affiliate. Ma presented the award during his February 2023 visit to the United States.
The DCNF found no evidence that the CPAFFC targeted Ma specifically.
Yet Chinese government officials have, on at least two prior occasions, allegedly succeeded in shifting her position on politically sensitive matters.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that in August 2005, while Ma sat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Chinese government pressure allegedly led her to pull her support from an art exhibit tied to Falun Gong practitioners.
The Sacramento Bee reported that in March 2009, while serving as a state assemblywoman, Ma allegedly terminated a resolution honoring Tibet following an intensive Chinese government lobbying campaign.
Ma said in a 2023 interview with CGTN — a Chinese state broadcaster — that greater integration between the two countries was her goal.
“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,” she stated.
Peter Schweizer, the New York Times bestselling author of “Red Handed,” did not mince words when asked about Ma’s pattern of engagement.
“CCP elite capture is alive and well,” Schweizer 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.”
Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Cella called for immediate institutional attention, arguing the pattern should trigger a “flashing red light for our national security and intelligence agencies.”
“[E]lected and appointed officials, staff, and executive leaders and workers in all sector and strata, need to be educated about the nature of the CCP, how these threats emanate and manifest, how to be on guard against them, and to counter them, the importance of refusing to participate in these meetings, and certainly reporting them to the FBI,” Cella told the DCNF.
Ma did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
