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FIRST ON FOX: A beforehand unreported 2013 Facebook submit by China’s San Francisco consulate exhibits then-freshman Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., touting “great potential” for U.S.-China cooperation throughout a meeting with a senior CCP diplomat, which got here throughout the identical time interval when Swalwell was allegedly focused by Chinese espionage efforts.
The 2013 photo, which was unearthed by Fox News Digital and “liked” by Christine “Fang Fang” Fang, a Chinese nationwide who was suspected of being a Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) operative and who was reportedly working intently with Swalwell’s marketing campaign serving to with fundraising, confirmed Swalwell posing with Song Ru’an.
At the time of the photo, Ru’an was the Deputy Consul General at China’s Bay Area consulate in San Francisco. He would subsequently be tapped to function the Deputy Commissioner of the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in Hong Kong till a minimum of 2021.
“The United States and China have a lot in common and the two economies are highly complementary. There are great potential for the two countries to cooperate,” Swalwell mentioned on the meeting in response to the image’s caption posted by the Chinese consulate. “I will work actively to promote bilateral economic and trade cooperation, and I’m looking forward to visiting China in the near future.”
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Then-freshman member of Congress Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., seen posing in a photo with Deputy Consul General at China’s Bay Area consulate in San Francisco Song Ru’an in 2013. (Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco)
The unearthed photo comes a pair of weeks after Fox News Digital reported on a California-based legislation accomplice for a Beijing legislation agency donating hundreds of {dollars} to Swalwell’s gubernatorial marketing campaign. Like Keliang “Clay” Zhu, Ru’an has a historical past of supporting pursuits opposite to American priorities. Ru’an served as one of China’s main officers in Hong Kong between 2015 and 2021, and was a vocal critic of a 2019 U.S. Human Rights and Democracy Act geared toward defending Hong Kongers from China’s authoritarian crackdown on its dissidents that solely a single Republican member of Congress voted in opposition to.
Ru’an blasted the invoice on the time because the “the epitome of hegemony” and warned it went in opposition to American pursuits, in response to the South China Morning Post. Ru’an additionally reportedly slammed the strikes as a “negative and disgraceful role” the U.S. was taking part in in China’s home points.
Ru’an emerged as a central determine in Hong Kong throughout China’s nationwide safety crackdown there that started boiling over in 2020, 2021 and subsequent years. According to the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Ru’an advised international media shops to “inject positive energy” into protection about new extradition legal guidelines China was imposing on Hong Kong in 2019. Multiple briefings from each earlier and subsequent years confirmed comparable efforts by Ru’an to “guide” media protection in favor of China.
In 2018, he met with members of the American media to debate how the “One Country, Two Systems” framework between Hong Kong and China is significant to U.S.-China commerce relations.
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Prior to Ru’an’s work on behalf of the Chinese authorities in Hong Kong, whereas serving as Deputy Consulate General at China’s San Francisco consulate, public stories mentioned Ru’an and different consular officers despatched letters and traveled to Oregon in an try to forestall the creation of a mural highlighting China’s human rights abuses in opposition to Tibetan individuals. Prior to working in San Francisco, Ru’an held a number of CCP roles again in China, together with on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Swalwell’s workforce declined to supply any remark for this story. The San Francisco Chinese Consulate didn’t reply to Fox News Digital’s request for remark.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) speaks throughout a House Judiciary Committee listening to with FBI Director Kash Patel within the Rayburn House Office Building on Sept. 17, 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“It’s bad enough that certain California special interests are pushing redistributionist tax policies straight out of a communist manifesto. Now one of the state’s leading gubernatorial candidates has been caught cozying up to the Communist Chinese Party again,” GOP strategist Colin Reed mentioned. “California’s next governor needs to have the intelligence, judgment and character to stand up to the CCP, especially when it comes to empowering American innovators with a common sense regulatory environment that allows them to grow.”
“I know first hand what it’s like to live under a communist regime. One-party rule by an authoritarian Communist Party: that’s not theoretical for me, and for years I have expressed my disgust at the establishment strategy of ‘engaging’ with the communist regime in China in the hope that this would one day move them towards freedom and democracy,” Republican California gubernatorial candidate and Former Fox News host Steve Hilton advised Fox News Digital.
“These people never give up power voluntarily and they are always on the look-out for the ‘useful idiots’ and gullible stooges who they can target with their influence operations. Seems like they found the perfect mark in Eric Swalwell, and it’s somewhat alarming that the poor judgment is still being repeated, as we learned with the recent revelations about CCP-linked donations to his campaign,” he added.
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Swalwell served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) when information broke of his ties to Fang Fang, who “liked” the photo posted in 2013 of Swalwell and Ru’an. Swalwell’s function on the influential intel committee was one which dealt with delicate nationwide safety issues different members of Congress will not be aware of. Now, he’s asking voters to raise him to governor of a state on the middle of U.S.-China commerce and tech.
Earlier that very same 12 months, Swalwell attended an occasion hosted by the California State University, East Bay Chinese Student Association, a bunch that was led by Fang Fang, to rejoice the Chinese New Year.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., was mocked on X this week after posting a video of himself lifting weights whereas trashing Republicans. (Getty Images)
U.S. officers have repeatedly warned that Beijing makes use of diplomats and affect networks just like the United Front to domesticate relationships with American politicians, making even routine-looking interactions politically flamable once they contain a lawmaker already shadowed by foreign-influence scrutiny.
“Swalwell met Fang Fang when he was on the city council. He continued a long relationship with her and she would direct him. She directed interns in his office,” former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy advised Fox News Digital. “And it wasn’t just Swalwell who had knowledge of her. I believe people in his family became friends with her as well. But his activity and his behavior is very disturbing.”
“The report that I received, he never should have been on Intel,” McCarthy advised Fox News Digital, citing the briefing he and different senior degree members of Congress obtained after information broke about Swalwell, Fang Fang and the alleged affect operation she was half of. “The knowledge that I have of what transpired and the actions that he has done and the behavior, especially when he’s gone to other countries, I would be very leery of him in any position of that can have sensitive information. The recklessness in which he lived his life, the reports that have come back, I think it would be hard for him to ever even be considered as a governor candidate, period.”
Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy on the U.S. Capitol steps. (Getty Images)
A handful of present and former intelligence officers advised Axios in 2020 that they believed Fang Fang, who additionally goes by Christine Fang, was half of an affect operation run by China’s Ministry of State Security between roughly 2011 and 2015. The outlet reported that Fang Fang gained proximity to political energy by way of marketing campaign fundraising and networking, including that she engaged in sexual relationships with a minimum of two Midwestern mayors, and was additionally focusing on elected officers in California.
Swalwell’s earliest ties to Fang Fang started in 2012 when he was seen posing in a photo with her throughout his time as a council member for Dublin City, California. The reported “student event” was attended by Fang Fang, who Axios indicated was a pacesetter for her faculty’s Chinese Student Association and its Asian Pacific American Public Affairs chapter. The pair was recognized posing in one other photo collectively the next 12 months at a Chinese New Year banquet held at Fang Fang’s faculty.
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Meanwhile, between 2013 and 2014, Fang Fang helped fundraise at an occasion for Tulsi Gabbard, in response to a flyer of the occasion she shared on Facebook, and in addition volunteered for Rep. Ro Khanna’s, D-Calif., failed House bid, different social media posts and talks with a former organizer indicated, in response to Axios. Fang Fang appeared in pictures with Swalwell, Khanna, Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., and others throughout a interval of a number of years round this time as effectively. According to an intelligence official and a Bay Area politico, Fang Fang took half in fundraising exercise for Swalwell’s 2014 marketing campaign and allegedly helped place an intern in his workplace, whereas additionally interacting with the California congressman at a number of occasions throughout a number of years.
The nationwide flags of the United States and China flutter on the Fairmont Peace Hotel on April 25, 2024 in Shanghai, China. (Wang Gang/VCG through Getty Images)
Eventually, U.S. intelligence officers grew to become so involved with Fang Fang’s actions that they alerted Swalwell and different members of Congressional management in 2015. At the time, Pelosi was serving as House Minority Leader whereas McCarthy was the House Majority Leader, however McCarthy indicated he was not briefed then. Meanwhile, Swalwell instantly minimize ties with Fang Fang upon the defensive briefing, sources talking to Axios mentioned. McCarthy has questioned how lengthy Pelosi knew about Swalwell’s ties to Fang Fang, and whether or not she was conscious of them previous to appointing him to the influential House intel committee.
Shortly after Axios broke its investigation of Swalwell’s ties to Fang Fang in 2020, top-level Democrats and Republicans, together with then-House Minority Leader McCarthy and then-House Speaker Pelosi, obtained additional briefings on the matter, which was adopted by GOP requires Swalwell to be faraway from the HPSCI. The high-level committee workouts major congressional oversight over the U.S. intelligence neighborhood and is aware of categorized info different members of Congress will not be.
Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing and a multi-year congressional ethics report backed that assertion and didn’t take any additional motion in opposition to the congressman over his questionable associations.
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In 2021, House Republicans tried to formally take away Swalwell from the House intel committee, however Democrats had the ability and killed the invoice. Upon the ability in Congress shifting to Republican palms the next Congressional session, then-Speaker of the House McCarthy rejected Swalwell’s try to keep up his seat on the highly effective committee and he was pushed out in 2023.
Rep. Eric Swalwell’s, D-Calif., China ties are beneath recent scrutiny amid his bid to switch California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
McCarthy mentioned he wasn’t attempting to take benefit of the chance to “punish” Democrats, however, quite, was so alarmed by Swalwell’s habits that he felt it was vital to guard nationwide safety.
“Based upon my classified knowledge, and based upon being Speaker – the reports that have come to me are very disturbing, his continual actions and behavior,” McCarthy added. “I don’t understand how a man like him would consider running just based upon that knowledge.”
