WASHINGTON– Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has a shared history with China. And the Republicans are exploiting it.
At age 25, Walz taught high school in China for a year. He returned for his honeymoon and many more times with American exchange students. As a congressman, he served on a committee that looked into human rights in China and met figures such as the Dalai Lama.
Now that Walz is the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Republicans have accused him of a decades-long relationship with “communist China” and even launched an investigation. The attacks show how, in the tense relationship between the US and China, visits that were once seen as simple cultural interactions have become the target of political opponents. Ultimately, Beijing does not expect US policy to ease, regardless of who sits in the White House, experts say.
Because Washington’s relationship with Beijing is competitive, any interaction with China appears to be “viewed with skepticism, if not outright suspicion,” and it has “become a tried-and-true tactic to attack opponents just because their resume includes a China number,” says Kyle Jaros, associate professor of global affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
“The assumption behind these attacks is that ties to China lead to people being beholden to or sympathetic to China and endangering U.S. interests,” Jaros said. “There is definitely such a thing as being too closely tied to a geopolitical rival, but blanket bashing of China and excluding people with first-hand China experience from U.S. policy is also bad for U.S. interests.”
Republican Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, announced Friday an investigation into Walz’s China ties, including the student trips he organized. Comer said he has asked the FBI for information on whether Walz might have been targeted by or recruited into Beijing’s influence operations.
Walz’s “longstanding and close relationship with China” should be of concern to Americans, Comer said in a statement.
Walz spokesman Teddy Tschann referred to the governor’s achievements in the fight against the Chinese Communist Party and for human rights and democracy.
“Republicans are distorting basic facts and lying desperately to distract from Trump and Vance’s agenda,” Tschann said.
The critical investigations began almost immediately after Walz was named Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in the November presidential election.
“Communist China is very happy with Walz,” Richard Grenell, former deputy director of national intelligence in President Donald Trump’s administration, posted on the social media platform X.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote on X that Walz “owes the American people an explanation of his unusual 35-year relationship with communist China.” Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican of Florida, called Walz “an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders.”
Walz was 26 when he returned from a year-long teaching assignment in China. He spoke kindly of the Chinese people, saying they had been “mistreated and betrayed” by their government. He told the Chadron Record newspaper in his home state of Nebraska that he wished they had proper leadership.
Walz returned to China for his honeymoon in 1994. He married on June 4, the fifth anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the student-led pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, which remains a political taboo in China.
“He wanted a date he would always remember,” Gwen Whipple, Walz’s future wife, told the Scottsbluff, Nebraska, Star-Herald before their trip.
Later, when Walz came to Washington as a congressman from Minnesota, he became involved in human rights in China and served on a congressional committee dealing with the issue. He described a lunch with the Dalai Lama as “life-changing.”
He also posed for photos with Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, who testified before Congress in 2019 when the territory was rocked by months of protests over an unpopular proposal to extradite suspects to China for trial that raised doubts about Hong Kong’s autonomy. Beijing sees the Tibetan spiritual leader and Wong as threats to its rule and frowns upon U.S. politicians meeting with them.
In recent years, China has tempered its hopes for U.S. politicians with a history in the country, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the foreign policy think tank Stimson Center. That’s partly because they may know details about China’s internal problems, she said.
Walz’s knowledge could actually lend credibility to U.S. criticism of the ruling Communist Party, says Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science at Syracuse University.
He also shows “how it is possible to have China experience and human empathy while maintaining moral clarity” toward the Chinese government, said Jaros of the University of Notre Dame.
In China, the public is curious about Walz’s experiences in the country, but the government suppresses any discussion.
Former students at Foshan No. 1 High School, the Chinese school where Walz taught in 1989-90, were asked not to post anything about Walz or accept interviews with the media, especially foreign journalists. The message, posted in at least one alumni chat group and shared with The Associated Press, cited the “extremely sensitive” China-U.S. relations, the anti-China consensus of both political parties and the need to “avoid unnecessary trouble.”
The nationalist Chinese news site guancha.cn published an exclusive interview with Chen Weichuan, a retired English teacher at the school who acted as a translator between Walz and the principal and invited Walz to eat street food.
Chen described Walz as “very kind, easy-going and popular with the students” and expressed admiration for Walz’s rise from teacher to governor and now vice presidential candidate. “He is remarkable,” Chen told guancha.cn.
Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, declined to comment, saying the U.S. election was an internal matter.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has no illusions that Washington will soften its stance toward Beijing, regardless of who is elected in November, said Willy Lam of the Jamestown Foundation research institute.
“They have stopped considering the idea that individual politicians, individual CEOs could push the White House toward more China-friendly policies,” Lam said.
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AP researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York and writer Elsie Chen in Washington contributed.
