As the federal government focuses on curbing Chinese influence, there has been a growing movement among Washington DC's elite lobbying firms to cut ties with clients with ties to the Chinese government and military.

Melman Consulting, a lobbying firm, Worked extensively TikTok has dropped the Chinese social media platform as a customer following its failed attempt to block legislation that could have led to a nationwide ban of the app. according to According to a disclosure document filed June 28, Mellman is just the latest in a series of well-known lobbying firms to cut Chinese clients as the federal government considers legal sanctions against companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and expands the list of companies it designates as “Chinese military companies.”

“There are no private businesses in China,” a spokesperson for the House Select Committee on the Communist Party of China told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Some lobbyists are waking up to the fact that working for a Chinese business is nearly indistinguishable from working for the Chinese Communist Party.” (Related: Chinese military companies have spent more than $24 million lobbying the U.S. government in recent years)

Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik is among lawmakers seeking to punish lobbyists who work with companies with ties to the Chinese military. For example, in May, she Modified Defense authorities prohibiting the Department of Defense (DOD) from contracting with lobbying firms that represent companies determined to be Chinese military companies.

“It is reprehensible that American lobbying groups are defending companies that directly advance China's military modernization efforts,” Stefanik said at the time.

The Department of Defense 1260H Entity Listdefines Chinese military companies as those that are “directly or indirectly owned, controlled, or beneficially owned” by the Chinese military and those involved in supporting Beijing's military infrastructure. Companies that the Defense Department determined have ties to the Chinese military spent more than $24 million lobbying the U.S. government between 2020 and April 2024, often spending heavily to block bills that would restrict their activities in the U.S.

The move by lobbying firms to withdraw from representing Chinese companies began in mid-February. Reports As first reported by Politico, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is considering blacklisting lobbying firms that contract with companies on the Defense Department's 1260H Entity List. “These companies are our enemies, and there is clearly a coordinated effort on their part to use lobbying firms to buy us off for influence,” a Republican staffer said at the time, explaining the rationale for pressuring lobbying firms to drop clients with ties to the Chinese military.

At the time, congressional staffers emailed influential lobbying firms telling them not to take on clients with ties to the Chinese military, and one senior Republican staffer went so far as to ignore communications from lobbyists until they could prove they weren't working for Chinese military companies, according to Politico.

The employee pressure and talk of blacklisting appears to have paid off, as several major lobbying firms, including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Brownstein Hyatt Faber Schreck, cut ties with Chinese defense companies designated by the Pentagon in late February, disclosures show.

Vogel Group Drone manufacturer DJI has been removed from the 1260H list. Brownstein and Akin Gump The two companies disclosed that they had terminated a contract with Hesai Group, a Chinese military company that was developing a vehicle-mounted laser detection system for the Pentagon. Abok The company's contract with DJI also ended in late February. Steptoe LLP Removed Chinese biotechnology company BGI from the 1260H Entity List.

Washington leaders continued to distance themselves from Chinese companies in March. Biosecurity ActA bill to ban contracts with biotechnology companies allegedly linked to the Chinese government has gained support, The Wall Street Journal reported. reportWuxi AppTec is one of the victims of pressure generated by the law, with the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a major industry lobbying group, cutting ties with the company after it was targeted by the bill.

“China is unique in that they don't really have a private sector. They're forced to share information with the People's Liberation Army and their intelligence agencies,” said Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. Said “So that's why we [a] It's a Chinese company, so it's a cause for concern.”

China's lobbying efforts continued into April, with TikTok and its China-based parent company Bytedance Spent millions of dollars In the process, TikTok mobilized an army of lobbyists, including former lawmakers and former senior government officials, to try to block legislation that would have forced ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a nationwide ban.

Chinese embassy officials reportedly worked with American lobbyists to oppose the bill, according to Politico.

TikTok's lobbying ultimately failed, and Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversarial Control Applications Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in late April.

TikTok lost allies in Washington in the aftermath of its failed campaign, including NetChoice, a center-right lobbying group that expelled TikTok from its coalition after pressure from the office of Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. according to To Politico.

Ben Freeman, director of the Quincy Institute's Foreign Policy Democratization Program, told Politico that the backlash against Chinese influence in Washington is “eerily similar to the backlash the Saudi lobby faced after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.” Freeman believes that even if China moves out of the spotlight, there's a good chance that influence operations in Congress will make a comeback.

“As long as there are no legal impediments to working for highly paying foreign clients, as is the case with lobbying groups representing Russian interests which have found themselves sanctioned since the Ukraine war began, there will always be people in the United States willing to lobby for them,” he told Politico.

Melman, Avok, Brownstein, Akin Gump, Steptoe, NetChoice, Vogel Group, the Biotechnology Innovation Authority and TikTok did not respond to DCNF’s requests for comment.

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