When "Socialists" Pledge Loyalty to Beijing: Inside the DSA's China Problem

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A Public Pledge to Beijing

About a dozen activists connected to the Democratic Socialists of America have signed their names to a public declaration organized by Friends of Socialist China, a London-based advocacy group. The pledge states that signers "resolve to support, defend and build understanding of Chinese socialism," and argues that Beijing plays a uniquely important role in a global shift away from capitalism.

The New York Post identified eleven self-described DSA or DSA International Committee members among the roughly 950 total signatories, after The Times of London first reported on the list. The DSA did not respond to requests for comment on the findings.

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Not an Isolated Incident

Reporting from Newsweek, based on internal DSA meeting minutes dating back to 2021, shows that members of the group's International Committee and its China Working Group have for years discussed building closer ties with Chinese Communist Party officials, framed internally as "anti-imperialism." The minutes reportedly show some members arguing that sensitive subjects — Beijing's military pressure on Taiwan, the crackdown in Hong Kong, and the persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority — should be avoided in these exchanges.

The pattern extends beyond meetings. A five-person DSA delegation traveled to Beijing in September 2025 to take part in China's celebrations marking 80 years since the end of World War II in Asia. One participant later published an account describing a "buzzing" capital and praising what she called a display of unity among world leaders present, including Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Asked for comment on the DSA's China ties, a Chinese Embassy spokesperson in Washington described local exchanges as a normal part of U.S.-China relations.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose political career grew out of the DSA, is not named as a signatory to the pledge or as a participant in the Beijing trip. But the organization remains his political home, which is why the group's dealings with Beijing keep drawing scrutiny back to him.

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The Gap Between the Slogan and the System

Here is the problem with the pledge: the political system it defends bears little resemblance to the "socialism" its American admirers imagine. China is a one-party state controlled by President Xi Jinping, with no free elections, a tightly censored press, and courts that answer to the Communist Party rather than the law.

Human rights organizations and Western governments have documented the mass detention of Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang region, describing conditions that include forced labor and coercive population control. Independent researchers have also long tracked the persecution of religious and spiritual groups in China, including practitioners of Falun Gong, who have faced imprisonment and abuse simply for their beliefs. None of this fits the language of liberation used in the Beijing pledge.

The same activists who want to defund police departments, abolish prisons, and dismantle the Senate and the presidency in the United States are pledging loyalty to a government that maintains a vast domestic security apparatus, runs an extensive prison and labor-camp system, and concentrates political power in a single leader. Critics argue this is not an accident of messaging — it is what happens when the słogan of "socialism" gets separated from what socialist states have actually built once in power.

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Even Bill Maher Is Alarmed

The clearest sign that this issue has broken out of conservative media came from an unlikely source. On July 31, 2026, HBO's Bill Maher devoted his "Real Time" monologue to warning his own left-of-center audience about what he called the open embrace of communist language inside parts of the Democratic Party.

Maher conceded that when former President Trump calls the DSA communist, he is simply describing them accurately. He then read out DSA-linked statements — including calls to seize property from landlords and a tweet urging supporters to "elect more communists" — and told his studio audience, many of whom gasped, that this was communism by definition, "which we tried, and it doesn't work." Maher added that his own vote was now "in play" heading into the next election.

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What Comes Next

The DSA's Beijing pledge is unlikely to be the last flashpoint. As the organization's influence inside the Democratic Party grows — visible most clearly through Mamdani's rise in New York City — its foreign entanglements are likely to face more scrutiny, not less. For voters weighing what "democratic socialism" actually stands for, the gap between DSA rhetoric and the Chinese system it just pledged to defend may be the clearest answer yet.

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Sources

1. Newsweek — "Mamdani, China, Communist Party, Democratic Socialists" (investigative report on internal DSA meeting minutes): https://www.newsweek.com/mamdani-china-communist-party-democratic-socialists-11370804
2. Fox News (Politics) — "Democratic Socialists of America activists signed pledge to support, defend 'Chinese socialism'": https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democratic-socialists-america-activists-signed-pledge-support-defend-chinese-socialism
3. RealClearPolitics — Video/transcript, Bill Maher, "Real Time," July 31, 2026 monologue: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/08/01/maher_the_democratic_party_is_being_colonized_by_communists_my_vote_is_in_play.html

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