Swalwell’s Gubernatorial Campaign Continues to Receive Funding from Attorney with Chinese Ties

Representative Eric Swalwell’s California gubernatorial campaign has received another substantial donation from attorney Keliang “Clay” Zhu, raising fresh concerns about potential Chinese Communist Party influence. Zhu recently contributed $25,000 to Swalwell’s campaign, adding to his previous $5,000 donation in November and over $10,000 to Swalwell’s House campaigns.

Zhu serves as a partner at DeHeng Law Offices PC, a Beijing-based firm with documented connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The firm’s only U.S. presence appears to be a Silicon Valley office in Pleasanton, California, where Zhu is reportedly the sole attorney.

“Once again, Congressman Swalwell got caught with his hand in the CCP cookie jar,” said Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor Action. “It’s simply outrageous that Congressman Swalwell would take even more money from Keliang Zhu after Zhu’s connections to the CCP were made public.”

DeHeng Law Offices’ origins trace back to the China Law Office, established by the CCP’s Ministry of Justice in the early 1990s before being renamed in 1995. While presenting itself as independent, the firm maintains extensive cooperation with Chinese government departments and state-owned enterprises. Many of its China-based attorneys have backgrounds in Chinese politics.

According to Zhu’s professional biography, he has helped Chinese state-owned enterprises and other Chinese companies establish footholds in the United States. His work includes representing “an investment fund of a major state-owned enterprise in acquiring majority shares in one data analytics software company in the Silicon Valley,” valued at $100 million.

Another biography states that Zhu “has assisted Chinese companies and funds to complete more than $9 billion investments in the fields of chips, unmanned vehicles, new energy, artificial intelligence, industrial automation, and biopharmaceuticals in the United States.”

Zhu has also represented WeChat users in a lawsuit that successfully challenged former President Trump’s attempt to ban the platform in 2020. The Trump administration had expressed concerns that WeChat’s data collection practices could allow the CCP access to Americans’ personal information, potentially enabling surveillance of dissidents or facilitating disinformation campaigns.

More recently, Zhu has opposed state legislation in Texas and Florida designed to prevent Chinese nationals from purchasing land in those states, describing such laws as “unfair, unconstitutional and un-American.”

The DeHeng Law Office’s connections to Chinese politics extend beyond Zhu. For instance, Zhixu Wu, a senior partner in the firm’s Kunming office, serves on the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which operates under CCP leadership and is considered an instrument of China’s United Front strategy to influence U.S. policy.

This is not the first time Swalwell’s connections to China have drawn scrutiny. Earlier in his career, he had associations with Christine Fang, also known as “Fang Fang,” whom U.S. intelligence officials identified as part of a Chinese counterintelligence operation targeting American political figures. Swalwell has maintained that he cut ties immediately after being warned by U.S. intelligence officials, and a congressional ethics investigation found no wrongdoing on his part.

Nevertheless, Republicans removed Swalwell from his post on the House Intelligence Committee, citing the suspected Chinese spy connection. Adding to these concerns, a recently uncovered 2013 Facebook post from China’s San Francisco consulate showed Swalwell meeting with a senior CCP diplomat while touting “great potential” for U.S.-China cooperation. The post was reportedly “liked” by Fang Fang.

“First, Swalwell had a fiery romance with Fang Fang, a CCP honeypot. Then he was caught taking campaign money from China’s favorite big law firm,” Lucci told reporters. “Congressman Swalwell is either totally oblivious to the dangers of flirting with CCP operatives, or he doesn’t care and would take a check from Xi Jinping himself.”

Representatives for Swalwell’s campaign, DeHeng Law Offices, and Zhu did not respond to requests for comment on these donations or their implications.