It’s not really PD. It’s just they aren’t usb c spec compliant at all. USB-C has the power pins at 0v by default, and you have to signal there is a connected device to activate 5v. While usb-a has 5v hot all the time.

Since there aren’t any active chips in these cables, an A to C cable happens to have 5V hot on the usb c side, but this should not be relied on as it isn’t true for C to C

Some are so not USB-C compliant and just "USB-A wires but with a USB-C plug" that they only charge in one orientation just like USB-A.

We can't have nice things.

PD is optional for USB-C devices, but these out of spec devices don’t even support the basic USB-C resistor-based identification scheme (which is mandatory).