Many Democrats were pleased when Vice President Kamala Harris chose Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate. Republicans were also pleased about it. The Left sees Walz as a progressive from the Midwest whose “Minnesota nice” image will help Harris win close states.
But along with Walz’s leftist record, which is sure to get him into trouble with Republicans, his love for Communist China is also likely to get him noticed.
Walz went to China to teach at a high school in Guangdong Province, which is north of Hong Kong, soon after finishing his first year of college in his home state of Nebraska in 1989. When asked later why he did this at a time when few Americans were spending time in China, Walz responded, “China was coming, and that’s why I went.” When Walz got back to the United States, he and his wife started a business called Educational Travel Adventures, whose main goal was to take American students to China. The couple went to China every summer until 2003, and they even spent their honeymoon there, which is a lot like how Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spent his wedding in the Soviet Union. Walz says that he has been to the country about 30 times. His love for China is clear, and he knows Mandarin as well.
Many people may ask, “So what?” Many Democrats argue that Walz’s advocacy for human rights and Tibet poses a significant challenge to the communists in Beijing. Anyone who knows how China works, however, will find his long history with the country troubling.
As you may know, the famous Tiananmen Square killing happened in 1989, at the same time that you were planning to visit China. In spite of this, Walz still had a lot of respect for Beijing. Upon his return from teaching in 1990, he told his town’s newspaper, “I received excellent treatment.” There was no anti-American feeling at all. He went on and on about how there was “almost no crime” in the police state. In the end, Walz said, “If they had the right leadership, there are no boundaries on what they could accomplish.” He did say that the regime’s killing of students the previous year was not ideal. They are really nice, helpful, and skilled.
You may remember a famous movie in which Frank Sinatra, who played an American that the Chinese communists had brainwashed, said that another man was “the nicest, bravest, sweetest, most wonderful person I’ve ever known in my life.”
Even though Walz’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party isn’t nearly as exciting or scary as that made-up one, we still need to know what’s going on, especially since Walz admitted in 1993 that the government paid for him to take student groups to China. So, what did China think it would get in return for this money? What did Beijing expect Walz to give them in return?
In simple terms, the Chinese leftists aren’t running a Christmas charity for Americans. For those socialists, everything has to come with a price. It is certain that the Ministry of State Security, China’s strong secret police, checked out Walz. That’s how things work in China. For twenty years, no American would be able to run academic visits on the CCP’s dime without MSS permission. It wasn’t going to happen.
No proof exists that Walz works for the MSS, but after 30 trips to the country, what might they know? Thirty years ago, a young American who liked China and was also a part-time soldier would have been a tasty target for Chinese intelligence agents looking to hire new agents. We are not just asking an academic question, because Beijing’s spies are the biggest threat to US security right now.
Additionally, we just got rid of a Democratic president who had strange and unclear ties to Beijing, including Chinese intelligence giving millions of dollars to his son. Do we really want someone in the White House who could be even more influenced by China?
Democrats have been crazy about former President Donald Trump’s supposed ties to Moscow for the past nine years, even though most of those claims turned out to be false. Would anyone have thought Trump was qualified for the White House if he had gushed about Moscow’s greatness 30 times, including on the Kremlin’s dime?
She had to know about the governor’s long history with Beijing since Harris is known for her love of opposition research. It was clear that she didn’t care.
This selection of Walz as vice presidential candidate demonstrates that Democrats’ deep interest in espionage was always just a partisan show.