WASHINGTON — Governor of Minnesota. Tim Walz has a history with China. And Republicans are seizing on that.
At the age of 25, Walz taught high school in China for a year. He returned for his honeymoon and many more times with American exchange studentsAs a congressman, he served on a commission that monitored human rights in China and met figures such as the Dalai Lama.
Now that Walz is the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Republicans are accusing him of a decades-long relationship with “Communist China” and have even launched an investigation. The attacks reflect how, amid a tense US-China relationsvisits that were once seen as simple cultural interactions have become a target for political opponents. Ultimately, Beijing does not expect US policy to thaw regardless of who is in the White House, experts say.
Of competition that defines Washington’s relationship with BeijingAny interaction with China “seems to be viewed with skepticism, if not outright suspicion,” and it has become “a tried-and-true tactic to attack adversaries simply because they have a China line on their resume,” said Kyle Jaros, an associate professor of global affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
“The assumption behind these lines of attack is that having Chinese connections makes individuals dependent on or sympathetic to China and endangers U.S. interests,” Jaros said. “There is certainly such a thing as being too cozy with your geopolitical rival, but blanket China-bashing and excluding people with direct China experience from U.S. policymaking 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 connections to China, including student trips he organized. Comer said he had asked the FBI for information about whether Walz might have been targeted or recruited into Beijing’s influence operations.
Walz’s “long-standing and cozy relationship with China” should be a concern to Americans, Comer said in a statement.
Walz spokesman Teddy Tschann pointed to the governor’s record of opposing the Chinese Communist Party and fighting for human rights and democracy.
“Republicans are distorting basic facts and lying desperately to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda,” Tschann said.
The investigation began almost immediately after Walz was named vice president Kamala Harris’ running mate in the presidential election in November.
“Communist China is very happy with” Walz, Richard Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence in President Donald Trump’s administration, posted on the social media platform X.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote on X that Walz “owes the American people an explanation for his unusual 35-year relationship with communist China.” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, called Walz “an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders.”
Walz was 26 when he returned from a year teaching 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 a good leader.
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 movement on Tiananmen Squarewhich is still a political taboo in China.
“He wanted a date he would never forget,” Walz’s future wife, Gwen Whipple, told the Star-Herald of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, ahead of their trip.
Later, when Walz came to Washington as a congressman from Minnesota, he became a champion of human rights in China, serving on a congressional committee that tracks the issue. He called a lunch with the Dalai Lama “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 seized by the US government. months of protests over an unpopular proposal to extradite suspects to China for trial, raising concerns about Hong Kong’s autonomy. Beijing sees the Tibetan spiritual leader and Wong as threats to its rule and disapproved of American politicians meeting them.
In recent years, China has tempered its hopes for American politicians with a history in the country, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the foreign affairs think tank Stimson Center. That’s partly because they may know details of China’s internal problems, she said.
Walz’s knowledge would have increased American criticism of the ruling Communist Partysaid Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science at Syracuse University.
He also shows “how it is possible to bring experience and human empathy to China while maintaining moral clarity” about 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 is keeping the discussion about it in check.
Alumni of Foshan No. 1 High School, the Chinese school where Walz taught in 1989-90, were asked not to post anything about Walz or accept media interviews, especially with foreign journalists. The notice, posted in at least one alumni chat group and shared with The Associated Press, cited the “extremely sensitive” relationship between China and the United States, 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 served as an interpreter between Walz and the principal and who took Walz out to get street food.
Chen described Walz as “very nice, easygoing and well-liked by 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 the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, declined to comment, saying the US election was a domestic matter.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is under no illusion that Washington will soften its stance toward Beijing regardless of who is elected in November, said Willy Lam, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation.
“They have stopped thinking 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.