Republicans in the House of Representatives have announced an investigation into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over his alleged “ties” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
After graduating from college in 1989, Walz, the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, spent about a year as a high school teacher in China as part of Harvard University’s WorldTeach program. While in college, he took courses in East Asian studies.
Five years after teaching in China, Walz and his wife, teacher Gwen Walz, honeymooned in China while leading two high school tour groups. They later founded a company called Educational Travel Adventures, which organized annual student trips to China until 2003.
Although there appears to be no personal connection between Walz and the Chinese Communist Party, Republican Representative James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said Friday that he would launch an investigation into Walz’s “longstanding ties to Chinese Communist Party entities and officials,” the committee said in a press release.
CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP; ROBYN BECK/AFP
“Americans should be deeply concerned that Governor Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate, has a long-standing and close relationship with China,” Comer said in the press release.
He continued: “Mr. Walz has visited China dozens of times, served as a fellow at a Chinese institution loyal to the CCP, and spoken with the president of a Chinese organization that the State Department has exposed as an attempt by the CCP to influence and co-opt local leaders.”
Comer continued, “FBI informants recently informed the Committee that the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force is investigating CCP activities similar to China’s collaboration with Governor Walz. The American people have a right to fully understand how close the relationship is between Governor Walz and China.”
In a statement, Walz spokesman Teddy Tschann said: Newsweek: “Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights and democracy, and always put American jobs and American manufacturing first.”
He continued: “Republicans are distorting basic facts and lying desperately to distract from Trump and Vance’s agenda of praising dictators and moving American jobs to China. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will ensure we win the competition with China and will always stand up for our values and interests in the face of threats from China.”
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday, Comer said Walz’s trips to China decades ago and his subsequent activities, such as a speech at the 2019 US-China Peoples Friendship Association convention in Minnesota, made him “vulnerable to (the CCP’s) strategy of co-opting the elite.”
This activity “also raises questions about possible CCP influence on his decision-making,” the letter said.
Although Walz traveled to China many times during his teaching career, he was outspoken in his criticism of the CPP-controlled Chinese government for its human rights record. As a congressman, Walz co-sponsored several related bills, including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2017.
Walz also advocated finding common ground with China through diplomatic means. In an interview in 2016, he said he did not belong to the category that China necessarily has to have a hostile relationship.
Update 08/16/24, 4:41 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with a statement from Tim Walz’s spokesman Teddy Tschann.
