Tim Walz misrepresented his time in China – Washington Examiner
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democratic vice presidential nominee, has come under scrutiny for misrepresentations regarding his experiences in China. He has claimed to have traveled to China 30 times and to have witnessed the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. However, records indicate that he was actually in Nebraska during that time. Additionally, Walz’s campaign later clarified that he has visited China closer to 15 times.
His previous claims about his military service and political background have also faced criticism, and he is currently being investigated by Congress for his connections to China. This investigation follows the revelation that Walz aided in securing funding for a Minnesota research facility collaborating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The scrutiny surrounding him is intensifying as more inconsistencies in his statements come to light.
Tim Walz misrepresented his time in China
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has touted traveling to China 30 times and being in Hong Kong when the Chinese Communist Party cracked down on student protests in 1989. But public records and a new statement from the Democratic vice presidential nominee’s campaign tell another story.
As a then-congressman in 2014, Walz described what he said was his proximity to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, a story that has since been picked up by national media outlets. The 2024 running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris, moreover, previously said that he has taken 30 trips to China — a country Walz insisted in 2016 does not need “to [have] an adversarial relationship” with the United States.
However, contemporaneous news reports from 1989 indicate that Walz was in Nebraska, his home state, as the massacre unfolded, Minnesota Public Radio reported this week. Walz would go on to teach at a school in Guangdong, China. And contrary to Walz’s claim that he has visited China 30 times, the Harris-Walz campaign told Minnesota Public Radio that he has actually been to the country “closer to 15 times.”
“I still remember the train station in Hong Kong,” Walz said at a 2014 event in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
“There was a large number of, especially European, I think, very angry that we would still go after what had happened, but it was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels,” Walz said at the 2014 event.
News of the holes in Walz’s resume comes as the vice presidential nominee faces scrutiny over many other parts of his background that appear to have been embellished. Walz’s telling of his 2004 political origin story at a GOP rally contains significant inaccuracies, and he has come under fire from combat veterans over false claims about his military service, among other matters.
Meanwhile, Walz’s “extensive” ties to China are at the heart of an investigation in Congress led by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY). The Republican issued a subpoena to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week for records on those ties, claiming he spoke to a whistleblower who described a group chat with DHS employees titled “NST NFT Bi-Weekly Sync” that “contains information about Gov. Walz that is relevant to the committee’s investigation.”
In September, Comer requested documents from the FBI on Walz’s connections to China. He cited a Washington Examiner report detailing how as Minnesota governor, Walz helped secure funding for a Minnesota-based research center that works with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
The Kentucky Republican had cited in his FBI letter how Walz previously organized a partially CCP-sponsored trip to China for his students as a high school teacher in Minnesota. Walz also had a teaching fellowship until 2007 at China’s Macau Polytechnic University, the New York Post reported. The university embraces the Belt and Road Initiative, a program and key part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s foreign influence efforts.
On Tuesday evening, Walz will face off in a debate against Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the running mate of former President Donald Trump. Vance is aiming to tee off on Walz over discrepancies regarding Walz’s touted past, according to a source familiar with the preparations.
“I think the focus will be more on his mischaracterizations of his military record, but it’s clearly a pattern of behavior in all aspects of his life,” the source said.
The Harris-Walz campaign did not return a request for comment.
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