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By Didi Kirsten Tatlow and John Feng
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China Decoded is Newsweek’s in-depth newsletter about China’s growing influence on the world. It goes beyond the headlines to examine how Beijing thinks, how its policies travel beyond China’s borders, and what they mean for the United States and its allies. Readers can sign up for China Decoded here to receive each edition directly in their inbox.
The newsletter is written by journalists with deep experience covering China. Didi Kirsten Tatlow, Senior Correspondent for International Affairs and Investigations, has reported extensively on Chinese politics, influence and security. John Feng, China Editor, is based in Taiwan and covers China’s domestic politics, foreign policy and the strategic competition between Beijing and Washington.
Below, for Newsweek Members, we are reproducing the latest edition of China Decoded in full:
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The DSA-CCP nexus
There are seven “in the house” now—seven members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are set to take their seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, that is.
With the true scale of the full-throated rejection of President Donald Trump by the American electorate in the midterm elections still being counted that number may change. Many other DSA members were elected to other positions at state and local level.
John and I will be asking: What does it mean for U.S.-China relations?
Here, it’s important to remember that the DSA is not a political party but a political organization. Their candidates usually run on the Democratic Party ticket as the party’s “left left” (that’s not an official term, but I find it a useful one).
And either way, Trump has two more years in power. Presidents who are domestically weakened traditionally focus more, and not less, on foreign policy. Things could get even wilder.
Yet with the DSA so far nearly quadrupling its representation in the House from two seats to at least seven they’re clearly increasingly relevant and that means internationally too.
The DSA has a useful tracker here that covers how they did in all the votes on Nov. 3 at federal, state and local level. Among other things, it tells us which candidates are nationally endorsed and which are not.
The DSA is a broad and often fractious organization and that goes for its foreign policy too. It may surprise some that its best-known adherent, Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, is not nationally endorsed, because she was seen as too accommodating to Israel. Even the tracker suggests how pro-Palestine the DSA is; look at the slogan in the sign-up box: “Build DSA with us habibi.” Habibi is Arabic for dear, or bro.
Claire Valdez, one of the DSA’s newly elected congressional members, ran in New York’s 7th district, endorsed by DSA member and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani:
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More relevant for China reporters like John and me, the DSA’s International Committee, via its China Working Group, is extremely CCP-friendly.
Last January, a whistleblower contacted us saying that he couldn’t take it anymore; the committee’s China stance and activities were simply pro-authoritarian, he said, even though it claimed to be, well, democratic. I published a story which you can read here.
Support for the non-democratic, authoritarian governments in Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and other places is also far-reaching, according to the minutes, WhatsApp chats and other documentation. I’ve also reported on a connection between the DSA and an Iran-China political network.
The whistleblower shared extensive material from meetings where members praised CCP policies in the Uyghur region of western China, which are highly abusive, according to many Uyghurs, to human rights organizations and to the United Nations.
DSA China Working Group members have conducted friendly study tours to China, including to a Party School branch, have traveled to Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs live, on CCP-managed trips, and have come back with glowing assessments.
The situation of Hong Kong, where the kind of political speech that the DSA relishes at home was criminalized by Beijing in 2020 and can earn a person a life in prison, also figured.
Hong Kong was a “Trojan horse” that threatened to undermine support for the CCP, according to the minutes of a meeting that was attended by members of Code Pink and the “China Is Not Our Enemy” (CINOE) movement. The position won support in the group. Best not to talk about Hong Kong, was the conclusion.
A man at a DSA May Day rally in New York in 2019 holds a flag with Communist symbols:
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Code Pink was co-founded by Jodie Evans, who is married to the Shanghai-based millionaire Neville Roy Singham, who has funded many pro-CCP “left left” groups in the U.S.
The CCP is keen to build ties with the DSA.
“China wants to interface with the DSA,” a New York-based activist said. The China Working Group had connected to an organizational ecosystem in China that included the Shanghai-based China Academy, a website with deep ties to the CCP and its propaganda system, which also platforms pro-Russia voices.
Aleksandr Dugin is one of their contributors. Dugin is a Russian ultranationalist who is a leading theorist of “neo-Eurasianism,” which is about reviving Russian power. It’s Putin’s goal too, and Dugin has often been closely associated with Putin.
So, as the results come in, the DSA’s foreign policy is something to watch, including for what the organization’s impact will be on the Democratic Party.
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I’ve often asked the International Committee and its co-chairman, who is the chair of the China Working Group, Anlin Wang, for comment but have never heard back.
Perhaps with more members in Congress, where international affairs are part of the job and there are international committees too, the DSA foreign policy positions will come under more scrutiny, and it may find it needs to explain itself more.
Didi Kirsten Tatlow is Senior Correspondent, International Affairs/Investigations at Newsweek. She is based in Berlin, Germany. You can get in touch by email here.
The Data Story
The Democratic Socialists of America is celebrating a larger voice in U.S. politics this week after Tuesday’s midterm elections put seven DSA members in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The DSA backs independents like Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator and former presidential candidate, as well as those running for other progressive parties too, but the winners of all seven federal seats were members of the Democratic Party.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Michigan have been reelected for a fifth term that will begin in January 2027. Future representatives Chris Rabb, Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Donavan McKinney and Melat Kiros are all first-termers.
The DSA’s electoral commission is counting 75 wins across the country, including seats in state legislatures and county and municipal positions, such as Janeese Lewis George, the new mayor of Washington, D.C.
In Congress, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib have a legislative record of interest in foreign policy matters and have challenged the White House before, but in Trump’s remaining two years he can expect additional opposition from Rabb and McKinney, especially when it comes to U.S. support for Israel.
The newly elected representatives want to reduce U.S. military overreach, and that may begin by scaling back funding for the Defense Department—the Pentagon wants $1.5 trillion, a 42 percent increase from the previous year’s $1 trillion budget.
Assuming the Democratic Party captures the projected 258 seats in the House, the DSA’s footprint would represent less than 3 percent the caucus. With its majority over the Republican Party, the Democrats won’t need DSA vote to approve or reject legislation.
A test of how the Democrats might wield their new powers in Congress is how they treat the National Defense Authorization Act, which narrowly passed in the House this summer but has remained stalled in the Senate.
The NDAA approves funds used by the Pentagon, including troop salaries, and so must pass each year, but it has become an instrument for partisan amendments known as policy riders.
This year, Senate Democrats are unhappy about the Iran war and what they say is the Pentagon’s lack of transparency around the cost of the conflict. They’re also unhappy with a program to cooperate more closely with Israel on military supply chains.
With a large majority in the House and an effective caucus of 56 seats in the Senate after the midterms, the Democrats will have a big say in how much breadth the Pentagon has in the coming years.
When it comes to China, DSA-aligned Democrats and the wider Democratic Party haven’t made a serious push to strip the NDAA of provisions related to the Indo-Pacific, including efforts to reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese supply chains and to counter Beijing’s influence in key geographies around the world.
The House version of the bill, which will later be reconciled with the text approved by the Senate—likely next month—requires the Pentagon to include in its annual China military power report an assessment of “how delays in delivery of American defense articles to Taiwan affect the Chinese Communist Party's assessments of the balance of power in the [Taiwan] Strait.”
U.S. lawmakers also want to know “the likely strategic intent of Chinese forces in a conflict over Taiwan, how they will conduct a cyber enabled economic warfare campaign, a cross-strait invasion campaign, or a blockade campaign and how Russia may be assisting China in preparation for such activities,” according to the text.
The NDAA retains $1 billion in funding for defense industry cooperation with Taipei.
These are just some of the signs of the entrenched competition between the U.S. and China that Beijing likely already assumes going forward, regardless of which party controls the White House and Congress.
John Feng is Newsweek's China Editor based in Taichung, Taiwan. You can get in touch with John by email here.
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