Here’s a story that should make every American’s blood boil. Eileen Gu — born in San Francisco, raised in California, educated at Stanford — chose to represent Communist China over her own country in international competition. She told the media that money had nothing to do with it, that the U.S. “already has the representation,” and that she just wanted to inspire people. Turns out, the Chinese government was reportedly funneling millions of dollars her way the entire time. The Wall Street Journal now reports that Beijing’s Municipal Sports Bureau budgeted a combined $6.6 million for Gu and another U.S.-born athlete, figure skater Zhu Yi, in 2025 alone — and that across three years, the total allocation reached nearly $14 million.
What makes this even more damning is that the Chinese government tried to cover its tracks. According to the Journal, the budget document originally listed both athletes by name, but those references were scrubbed shortly after the information became public. If there’s nothing wrong with paying athletes to compete for your country, why delete the evidence? The answer is obvious: Beijing knows exactly how this looks, and so does Eileen Gu. The most recent funding was reportedly earmarked specifically for qualifying and competing at the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics — meaning American taxpayers watched an American-born athlete compete against Team USA with a Chinese government paycheck funding her preparation.
Gu is already one of the highest-paid female athletes on the planet, raking in massive endorsement deals from Chinese companies. She didn’t need the money. But the Chinese Communist Party clearly understood the propaganda value of having a photogenic, English-speaking, American-born gold medalist draped in their flag on the world stage. This was never just about sports — it was about a geopolitical adversary buying the loyalty of an American citizen to embarrass the United States in front of a global audience. And Gu was apparently happy to cash the check.
The next time someone tells you this is just about athletic freedom and cultural exchange, remind them of the $14 million. Remind them of the scrubbed documents. And remind them that Eileen Gu looked into a camera and told the world that money had nothing to do with her decision. The Chinese government’s own budget documents tell a very different story. Americans who compete for foreign adversaries for millions of dollars aren’t bridge-builders — they’re mercenaries. And the American people deserve to know the truth.
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