Subnational Diplomacy in California: Economic Cooperation or Security Risk?
The stated rationale is the need for energy and economic collaboration. But some critics believe that Chinas own motivations are not so high-minded. One such critic, Brigham McCown, a scholar from the Hudson Institute, fears that the relationship will lead to Californians becoming "unwitting instruments in Chinas propaganda efforts."
The subnational diplomatic ties between California and China are well established. A 2014 report details Californias longstanding work with China in the energy sector. But they are not without controversy, particularly in recent years.
In 2023, Newsom was criticized for "cozying up to" the CCP on his 2023 trip to China, during which he signed five memoranda of understanding (MOUs) regarding climate change.
MOUs are nonbinding agreements between a state and a country, and California currently shares 17 with China, a much higher number than it shares with most other countries. For reference, the next comparable numbers are the 12 MOUs California shares with Mexico and the nine it shares with Japan. Besides those countries, Californias MOUs per country hover around the one-to-five range.
While it is difficult to obtain the exact numbers, Ryan Scoville, a professor of law at Marquette University, compiled a list of U.S. state commitments with foreign governments, including MOUs, and found that California leads with at least 94 agreements, with Maryland coming in second place with 68.
There is evidence for a subversive type of Chinese influence in California as well. The late Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator in history and a key figure in Californian politics, made headlines after it was revealed that her driver was a Chinese spy. California Rep. Eric Swalwell was embarrassed by revelations that a Chinese operative had been targeting him and working on his campaign.
Meanwhile, several California universities have received scrutiny for being the beneficiaries of large donations from CCP-linked organizations.
Most recently, California and the federal government have been embroiled in a lawsuit over President Trumps tariffs. The lawsuit "argues that President Trump lacks the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs against Mexico, China, and Canada or create an across-the-board 10% tariff."
The California governors official website notes that "Californias economy and workers rely heavily on this trade activity, particularly with Mexico, Canada, and China - our top 3 trade partners. Over 40% of California imports come from these countries, totaling $203 billion of the more than $491 billion in goods imported by California in 2024."
Though state leaders are insistent that their diplomatic efforts are for the good of Californians, scholars remain divided over whether such diplomacy is necessary, or if it creates a national security threat.
Does Subnational Diplomacy Undermine U.S. Policy?
Yuichiro Kakutani, a policy advisor at the China and Indo-Pacific Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, told RCP, "Widespread malign Chinese influence in California presents a concrete national security risk to the United States."
Kakutani explained that the CCP is more dangerous to engage with than other countries since it "has proven adept at manipulating state-level officials," and listed several examples, including Chinas efforts to influence California elections and UC Berkleys tech deal that gave the Chinese access to U.S. research.
Brigham McCown, a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on American Energy Security at the Hudson Institute, another conservative think tank, offered a similar, though more nuanced, perspective to RCP. "While Californias activities may not directly undermine an administrations agenda in a legal sense, its actions can complicate Americas diplomatic posture, especially when unity is vital to facing strategic challenges," McCown said.
McCown explained that not only has China learned how to manipulate politicians, but it also has a long history of discreetly "exploiting internal divisions" among Americans. "Californians should be cautious not to become unwitting instruments in Chinas propaganda efforts," he warned.
McCown also touched on the tariff lawsuit, which has been ruled in favor of California, though an appeals court paused the decision, allowing the tariffs to remain in effect. He explained that the case is particularly relevant as it dictates the boundaries of state and federal authority.
"These types of cases raise an important constitutional standing issue which is: 'Who has standing to challenge federal decisions in matters of foreign policy?" McCown said.
McCown admitted that California may have ground to oppose the tariffs on an economic level, but that it does not have the authority to rise against the federal government on the matter. He explained, "While states may object to the economic consequences of federal action, under our federal system, states must defer to the national government in areas where the Constitution clearly delegates authority - particularly foreign commerce and international relations."
The Benefits to California
Not every scholar sees a problem. Kal Raustiala, the director of the UCLA Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations and a professor of comparative and international law at UCLA Law School, believes that subnational diplomacy is vital for Californias flourishing.
"In our system the federal government takes the lead on foreign affairs. But that doesnt mean that states have no role," Raustiala said. As long as states are not actively contradicting or undermining federal foreign policy, Raustiala adds that the federal government has no real reason to intervene.
"As a nation known for liberty and freedom, I think sometimes having multiple voices and opinions is good," he said. "I think other nations around the world understand that we are a big, varied nation with many views on key issues."
In addressing the tariff lawsuit, Raustiala stated that California is both protecting its own people and its foreign interests.
"California is the most economically dynamic state in the union," he told RCP. "We are big traders, big exporters, and have big, active ports. Trade is important, and California is seeking to ensure that trade continues to bring prosperity - prosperity that allows California to be a major net donor to the federal government year after year."
Madelynn McLaughlin is an intern at RealClearPolitics. She graduated from Liberty University in 2025 with a degree in Government: Politics and Policy.
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Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Announcer: From the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Paul Gigot: The gerrymander wars heat up again as California Governor Gavin Newsom says he'll change the district's maps in California, in order to give Democrats five more seats in the House of Representatives, if Texas goes ahead with its Republican plan to add five more Republican seats in redistricting. Can Newsom make that work, and how will that affect Republican plans in Missouri, Ohio, Florida as the mid-decade redistricting battles continue before the 2026 election? And how is all of this going to be affected going forward in the future as Americans continue to move out of some of the most-heavily Democratic states into Republican-run states, like Texas, Florida, Utah, and others? So, welcome to Potomac Watch. I'm Paul Gigot. This is our daily podcast for WSJ Opinion, and I'm here with Kim Strassel and Allysia Finley. Let's listen to Gavin Newsom on Instagram talk about his plans for redistricting in California. Gavin Newsom: It's time to make another phone call to Greg Abbott. This time, instead of calling him and telling him you're "entitled" to five congressional seats, it's time to tell him to stand down. It's time to recognize that democracy is at risk. It's time to, dare I say, do the right thing. Actually see how that feels for you doing the right thing. If you don't, California will neutralize anything you do in the state of Texas. California will continue to punch above its weight. We believe in democracy. We believe in the enduring values of our founding fathers. 249 years. We're not going to sit back passively. We're not going to sit back and watch you light democracy on fire. Paul Gigot: Well, Gavin Newsom's already running for president, we know, and he's made a big issue of this redistricting battle. But let's look at the math here, Allysia. California has 52 seats. Democrats have 43 of them, Republicans have nine, if I'm correct. That's a pretty heavily gerrymandered map for Democrats. Can he really get those Republicans seats down to four in the state? Allysia Finley: Well, I think what he would have to do is to draw these kinds of districts that you see in Illinois, which stretch out these tentacles from San Francisco all the way to the Nevada border. The districts that the Republicans hold in the state tend to be very rural, up in the north as well as in the Central Valley. And then you have a couple again along the border with Nevada and Arizona. These, again, are more rural districts in order to- Paul Gigot: And they're compact. Allysia Finley: They're compact districts. Paul Gigot: I mean, they're pretty compact. Allysia Finley: Right. They're very compact, and they were intentionally so. There was an independent redistricting commission, but the Democrats hijacked this commission, and when they did that they intended to essentially pack Republicans into these districts. Hence, where you have Democrats have about 80% of the statewide districts, even though Donald Trump got about 40% of the vote. So that already indicates that they're heavily gerrymandered. In order to get five more seats, you'd really have to, as I said, draw these districts that may not even be contiguous. And then if you were to actually try to draw certain seats, like up in Central Valley where David Valadao, who has a very competitive seat, if you were to try to pack more Democrats into that district, you'd probably have to take some Democratic votes from Democratic Congressman Jim Costa's district right up north of him. And Costa barely won his reelection last year, so it's a high risk gambit. Paul Gigot: What's the process? If a redistricting commission under California law is required to redraw districts, how can Newsom do it unilaterally? Allysia Finley: Well, what they're talking about doing is the legislature would put a ballot initiative on this upcoming November ballot that would give the Democrats authority to redraw the district for one time mid-decade and only if Texas passes its map. And they're hoping that this makes it more palatable to the public who generally opposes such gerrymanders. In fact, there was a recent poll that came out from Politico saying two-thirds of the public support this independent redistricting commission and would oppose the legislature redrawing of the maps. But the idea is that the voters would have to approve this redrawn map. Paul Gigot: So they'd have to approve the redrawn map after Democrats draw it, and presumably there would be some pushback. I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was a big promoter of the commission idea, he's opposed to it. Others are opposed to it. So it's not a sure thing that it would pass. And it sounds to me, Kim, that Allysia is saying we might be able to squeeze out a couple of seats, but it's far from a sure thing, and far less easy for California Democrats to do it now than it is for Texas Republicans who seem really set on doing it, redrawing the map once the Democrats come back from their sojourn into the great state of Illinois and the protection of JB Pritzker to give a quorum. Kim Strassel: Yeah. I mean, look, all Texas Republicans have to do is wait out Texas Democrats, and that's likely to happen. We already have Texas Democrats meeting and, as I expected would happen, they'll wait out to the end of this legislative session, which ends at the end of this week, and then they'll have a reason to come back and Republicans will pass their plan. This is what's happened in prior walkouts. Nothing new there. By contrast, what California is trying to do is actually quite a lift. Allysia just described the process. There's also a very short timeline for this. The legislature would need to get this passed essentially by the end of the week in order to hit all the necessary deadlines in California to have it on a ballot in early November. They can probably do that. They have super majorities. It will take two-thirds of each chamber in California to pass it, but again, Newsom essentially commands that many Democrats anyway. This in the meantime is going to be an off-year referendum, which means it'll probably have lower voter turnout. It's going to be very expensive on both sides. You have potential lawsuits may be coming. Steve Hilton, who is the gubernatorial candidate, has already said that he'll litigate against any measure the legislature passes, and he's going to make the legal argument that the state lacks the adequate data to accurately redraw these lines, especially given population shifts during and after COVID. You're going to have a lot of high-dollar people that are opposing this. You mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of the original proponents of this independent redistricting commission was not just Schwarzenegger, but Charles Munger Jr. who is the son of the former Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman. He spent more than $12 million passing it the first time, and he's already said he'll spend what it takes to defend it this time around. You have traditional allies of Gavin Newsom's, like the League of Women Voters, who oppose this move as well too. And then you've got the public support. That initiative initially passed with 60% of the vote. That Politico poll now shows that Republicans and Democrats both support this commission by more than 60%. 72% of Independents favor an independent commission. So to say that Gavin Newsom has set himself a high bar here, he has. Paul Gigot: But he feels, I think, that he has to fight this because this shows he's in fighting trim to take on the Republican in 2028, which he thinks that or he hopes will help him in the Democratic primaries as he runs for president. All right, we're going to take a break. Here, we're talking about gerrymandering, and when we come back, we'll talk about where Republicans think they can squeeze out more safe seats outside of Texas, when we come back. Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigot with Kim Strassel and Allysia Finley talking about the gerrymander wars. One of the intriguing sidelights of this redistricting brawl is that we're seeing the opposition to it come from Republicans in swing seats in the red states. There's a congressman from California, Kevin Kiley. It's the third district of California. That's one I think is on the Nevada border. It's a big district, rural district, and he has sent an op-ed into our paper, we will publish, basically saying, look, this is a terrible idea, this mid-decade redistricting, and he's introducing a bill in Congress to say you can only redistrict once a decade coincident with the census that happens every 10 years. The next one would be 2030. Mike Lawler, another Republican from New York, the northern New York suburbs, he's opposed to this redistricting because if Texas goes forward, then there's a lot of pressure on the Democrats who run the state legislature and the governorship to also do the same. But they have a similar issue with commission, which has set the terms in New York. I guess, Allysia, these swing state Republicans, and Kiley's got a pretty safe seat now, but he could not have a safe seat after this. These swing state Republicans could be a roadkill. Allysia Finley: Right. And so that's why you're seeing the movement in Congress to do something about this. Now, I'm not sure you're going to get other Republicans to jump on board with this, because they figured that they could probably gain more seats than Democrats could actually subtract, given that the Democratic states are already so heavily gerrymandered. Now there's talk about Ohio Republicans in Ohio, Missouri, obviously Texas redrawing their maps, and you could get 10 or 11 seats out of that. Paul Gigot: Hold it here, Allysia. 10 or 11 seats gained overall? Allysia Finley: The reason why is because you're probably going to get some redrawn districts also because, well, this is making a presumption that the Supreme Court might end up ruling in favor of Louisiana in this racial gerrymander case. And so you're likely then to get some lawsuits against some majority minority districts in these other states Republican that were drawn that give Democrats an extra seat. Paul Gigot: That would be Louisiana in particular. Allysia Finley: Particular. But there are several states where these majority minority districts were explicitly drawn and benefit Democrats. Paul Gigot: So Kim, Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Missouri could possibly squeeze out one more Republican seat. Democrats have two in the state now. They could get one. What are potential Republican gains in Ohio and Florida as you look at it? Kim Strassel: So Ohio's in an interesting situation because essentially its map was not agreed to, so it was already in the middle of a process. It's not reopening anything. It's actually midway through a process of doing it. It also has an independent redistricting commission, but a bit of a mirror of California's. By the way, these independent redistricting commissions, that name is very misleading. They're not very independent in most states. If they are independent, they usually end in a deadlock. If they've actually successfully made a map, it's because they are dominated by one side or the other. In Ohio, they are dominated by, this one is dominated by Republicans, and they'll get a couple of seats; two, maybe three seats out of Ohio. You mentioned Missouri. One, they're looking at Indiana. You could maybe squeeze one more seat out of Indiana. And then a big discussion where people are looking more closely is Florida, where the House Speaker is now forming a special committee to look at the maps. Florida has a map that is helpful to Republicans, but it has not in any way gerrymandered itself the way that say California or Illinois or New York has. And if you went in there, I mean, could you get another four seats, something like that? And add in Allysia's majority minority point and, yeah, you could be looking, all told, at 10, 11 or so seats. Paul Gigot: And on the Democratic side, let's say you got two or three out of California and maybe one, two out of New York. Although, that might have to happen after 2026 in New York. Kim Strassel: Yeah, they can't get in this. Paul Gigot: Given the complication, they can't get it this year. So where else are the Democrats going to get it from? Kim Strassel: Yeah, I mean, look, they're looking at Oregon. That's my birth state. That's going to be pretty darn hard to do. Democrats hold five out of the six seats there, and the sixth seat is basically all of Eastern Oregon, which is a very conservative spot. You could redo all the maps to essentially have lines that reach from one end of the state to the other, basically cut it up like a layered cake maybe and get something like that, but it'd be pretty tough to do. Washington State, they're also looking at. But they don't have a lot of options, Paul, and this is why it's a very mismatched contest for them to have entered into, because guess what? Yeah, I mean, what Republicans are doing in Texas is quite an aggressive move, and they are following in the footsteps of what Democrats have already done. And that's the point, is that they have gerrymandered the dickens out of all of their states, and finding any more room for growth is going to be tough. But what they are doing by engaging Texas in this is giving Republicans the excuse they needed to reopen redistricting in a lot of states where they could actually squeeze some seats out. Paul Gigot: We're going to take another break, and when we come back, we'll talk about migration trends and how those are going to affect reapportionment in 2030, when we come back. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, "Play the Opinion Potomac Watch podcast." That is, "Play the Opinion Potomac Watch podcast." Announcer: From the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Paul Gigot: Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigot here on Potomac Watch with Kim Strassel and Allysia Finley. A point as we go into 2026 here, I think worth mentioning, is that when they talk about gerrymandering safe seats, they can now with the science of analyzing voter behavior and voting patterns, they can be very precise. But any given election still depends on the public mood. And if you get a status quo election in the House midterm, and sometimes there are, where it's closely fought and closely divided, those redistricting new maps would really matter. But if you got a wave election, as the Democrats had in 2018 and Republicans had in 2010 and 1994. You get big wave elections where the public mood swings remarkably against the president in office and his party, then you could put some of these gerrymandered seats would be in jeopardy, Allysia, because they would be facing new voters that don't know the incumbent, for one. Second, they'd have less safe margins. They might have moved down from a Republican 15 seat down to Republican five or six. Still, you'd think Republican would win, but in a wave, no guarantee. Allysia Finley: Right. So it's ironic if you go back and look at 22 years ago when Texas did a mid-decade redistricting, there was much ado and Democrats were warning, "Well, these partisan gerrymanders, Republican gerrymanders mean that we'll never have a chance of retaking the House until maybe after 2010." And then look what happened in 2006 and then 2008 where Democrats picked up 50 seats. And those were basically wave elections, illustrating your point. What's also important to know is that there are a lot of voters who are crossover voters, split voters who aren't partisan. So when we focus on the Republican voter advantage in certain districts, maybe they have a 15-point registration advantage or even a 20. In many of these districts, actually, independent unaffiliated voters actually constitute a plurality, and they are the ones who decide the elections. Now, in certain states and certain districts, they have trended more toward Republicans, but they could easily just as well go for Democrats. And a case in point in the opposite direction is David Valadao's district has a 16-point Democratic voter registration advantage, but he has managed to get a lot of crossover Democratic voters and Independents. And so in a wave election, like potentially 2026 could be if the voters are really upset and frustrated with Republicans or Donald Trump's policies, some of these gerrymanders could backfire, thinning the Republican margins and give Democrats more seats. Paul Gigot: Yeah, Valadao has proven to be a pretty resilient politician in the Central Valley of California. Kim, we also had a development here recently where Vice President Vance said that what we really need is not just a redistricting mid-decade, we need a new census mid-decade, because the census in 2020 was flawed, he says, because it included too many illegal aliens in the estimated count that determined which states would get which districts. And because of those flaws, he wants a new census mid-decade. And then of course all kinds of redistricting mayhem would flow from that. But the Constitution, of course, doesn't rule out a national count, a national census mid-decade. What it does rule out is reapportionment. It says very plainly that you can only reapportion once every decade coincident with the census. Kim Strassel: Right. So you couldn't use that census to now say, "Oh, look, all these people have moved to Texas. Texas gets yet another congressional seat." You can't do that. There is actually legislation that Congress passed that does allow for a mid-decade census, mostly in case if there's issues or problems and they think they might need to reorient federal funding allocations. That was the driving idea behind that legislation at the time. The problem here is logistics. It's actually amazing that we even pull off a census every decade given how difficult it is to conduct a census and how bad our federal government is at conducting censuses. And the idea that you could gear something like this up in six months and have it rolled out in any time of the conceivable near future is ludicrous. And if you did engage in such a process, I can promise you that the results that came in would not be very accurate. It might make the BLS look like a shiny example of statistical smartness by comparison. So I don't think that that's a very good idea. But don't underestimate just how sore a lot of Republicans are about the last census and the Supreme Court ruling that essentially ended their plan to disallow immigrants as part of the count. Donald Trump remains obsessed on this question. He's very, very grumpy. He believes that if they had been able to do what they wanted to do, that Republican states would have a lot more seats than they have now, and that the Republican Party was done ill by this. But again, even if you were to try to gear this up and somehow made it happen, you're not going to change that bottom line in terms of what states have seats now. Paul Gigot: Allysia, you know more about this than I do, and you followed this court case and so on. But on the census point, isn't it true that Texas has an awful lot of illegal migrants? So if you couldn't count the illegal migrants in Texas, it might not gain as many seats as it would otherwise, and then the Republicans wouldn't be able to gain that many additional seats. Allysia Finley: So there's a few actually different questions here. There's the question of, well, everyone gets counted. The census requires that every person be counted. Paul Gigot: Person, not just citizen. Allysia Finley: Person. Every single person. It says person. Paul Gigot: Right. Allysia Finley: Right. What the Trump administration wanted to do in its first term was to add a question on the census to ask if they were citizens. Now, Democrats sued to try to block that. They said, well, this will result in potentially illegal immigrants or people not responding to the census and that could hurt us. Now, the Supreme Court intervened on Administrative Procedure Act grounds and ruled that the administration's attempt to add a citizenship question was (inaudible). So it was not added. But there's the separate question is whether you can redistrict and reapportion seats based on citizenship or immigration status. Now that opens up a whole new can of worms. Are we going to only consider when we apportion House districts at the end of the decade or then redistrict? Are we only going to do that based on citizen voting age population and then exclude children because they're not voters? Are we only going to do it again based on citizen, or could we include immigrants who have green cards and aren't illegal? That's a whole nother court case, legal challenge that hasn't even been raised if they were to try to do that. And I think that would actually, as I said, open up a whole new can of worms. Paul Gigot: Kim, the larger big picture backdrop here, of course, are migration trends between the states. And what's really been happening for a long time now, and it accelerated during COVID, was the migration from states like California and Illinois and New York in particular to Texas, Florida, and some other Republican-run states, more rural states. And so the Brennan Center, which is a left-leaning outfit, has done an estimate. Current trends: Texas after the 2030 census could gain four seats. Florida, four seats. Utah, Idaho, North Carolina, and Arizona, one seat each. Meanwhile, California is expected to lose four. Lose four. New York, lose two. Oregon, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, lose won. Now, most of those losers are Democratic-tilted seats. So you look ahead to 2030 and the House gets more difficult for Democrats. Kim Strassel: Do you see the trend there, Paul? I always like to say that actually American citizens have two very powerful tools when they're unhappy with governance. One is the power to vote and the other is a U-Haul truck, especially if you do not like your state and local governance. And that's actually really been a fascinating theme in particular since COVID, because if you really dig into numbers and migration, we've always had migration in the United States, but a lot of it in the past was driven more by economic opportunity or change of life, retirement for instance, or maybe better schools in a different place. It's increasingly becoming a political choice for people, and that really accelerated, as you note, during COVID, as people had frustrations with lockdowns and certain forms of local governance that they just decided that they were done with. But it has accelerated, it's continued. These numbers are huge. It's been very good for Republican states, or at least states that are Republican now. One interesting question is if all these people move in, do they change the political tenor of the states and vote in a different way, shift the politics there? We'll have to see how that comes. But from an immediate perspective, this is something that ought to concern Democrats deeply. And as they are doing their non-autopsy at the moment, they might put on the list of things that they're not deeply looking into, this question of state and local governments, millionaires, taxes and economic penalties that are driving people out of their states, because this is going to be a big boom for Republicans. We're talking about the immediate redistricting problem and issue and political fight at the moment, but the long-term trends are the ones that really matter, and those are all going one direction. Paul Gigot: We've been writing about taxes, moving migration trends in some of these states. I saw the story in The Journal this morning about Democrats in blue states looking at the Massachusetts model to squeeze more money out of the wealthy. And of course, Massachusetts raised its top marginal tax rate to above 9%. It had been a flat tax of about five or so. Moved it up above nine, and then they're getting a windfall of revenue from that, at least here in the short to medium-term. And these blue states are saying, "Oh boy, we can try that." Well, they've tried it. It's very hard to get the tax rates higher in California than it already is. 13.3% I think is the top marginal rate there, and it hits at a very low level of income. The glorious city of New York, of which I am a not-so-proud resident, 14.8% top marginal rate. Where are you going to get that? Mamdami wants to raise it to 16.8. I can tell you that's going to drive more people out of the state. All right. We'll leave it there for today on Potomac Watch. Thanks to Kim. Thanks to Allysia. Thank you all for listening.
