Before Vice President Kamala Harris’ new running mate Tim Walz was governor of Minnesota or a member of the House of Representatives, he was a popular high school teacher who taught geography.
And before teaching high school, Walz spent a year in China teaching for an NGO called WorldTeach, which sent volunteer teachers to developing countries.
“No matter how long I live I’ll never be treated that well again. They gave me more gifts than I could bring home. It was an excellent experience,” Walz told a local Nebraska paper after the experience.
As a high school teacher, Walz also organized trips for students to China, which received some funding from the Chinese government.
Walz, who reportedly still speaks some Mandarin, has kept a close relationship with China and says that his background informs how he thinks about America’s relationship with the country.
“I lived in China, and as I said I’ve been there about 30 times, but if someone tells you they’re an expert on China they’re probably not telling you the truth … I don’t fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship, I totally disagree,” Walz said in an interview with Agri-Pulse, a farming, agriculture, and policy trade publication in 2016, when he was on the House Agriculture Committee.
But Republicans are lining up to take shots at Walz over talking diplomacy with China. In D.C. in recent years, China has been the target of bipartisan ire as a potential rival to the United States. Former President Donald Trump launched a trade war against the country while in office in 2018.
“Kamala Harris tapping Tim Walz for VP is a case study in how the Chinese Communist Party’s sub-national influence strategies can translate into an advocate in the White House,” posted Michael Lucci, the founder of an anti-CCP think tank, on X. “China cultivated Walz as a teacher and a state legislator. He lived in China and visited ~30 times.”
“The CCP cultivating Tim Walz is textbook ‘sub-national influence,’” Lucci explained, laying out a five-step program of alleged infiltration and cultivation that he says the Chinese Communist Party has run on Walz, including establishing a relationship early in his life, “softening” his views on the country by frequent visits, maintaining a relationship with him, having Walz “parrot” Chinese Communist Party propaganda, and “capitaliz[ing] on the relationship at an opportune time” after playing the long game.
Attacks on Walz over his relationship with China quickly piled up online, with some people like Michael Sobolik of the American Foreign Policy Council laying out similarly sophisticated theories of long-term cultivation of Walz, while others went directly for the jugular.
“Tim Walz doesn’t see China as a problem,” posted James Hutton, who was a Trump appointee in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “This is a guy who will have to learn the truth of the vicious nature of the dict*torship in Beijing. Communist tyranny may not be a bad thing to Walz but the rest of the world knows. Walz is dangerous.”
Over on Truth Social, attacks on Walz over his connections to China started piling up even before he got the nod from Kamala.
“Prediction on Harris V.P.” posted @Adubay last Friday. “Governor Tim Walz. He’s a radical China loving communist.”
“Tim Walz wants to end the trade war with China, Whoa!” posted Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, pointing to a tweet from 2019 where Walz accused Trump’s policies of hurting U.S. farmers and hindering economic growth.
Republican vice presidential pick Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) also dinged Walz on China, telling reporters in Philadelphia that Walz proposed “shipping more manufacturing jobs to China.” It wasn’t immediately obvious what Vance was referring to. An organizer with Rural Americans for Harris didn’t immediately respond to questions about Walz’s position on manufacturing jobs and China.
In a 2010 ad while Walz was running for Congress, Walz said “American jobs are heading overseas and we still give these companies tax breaks. I say if businesses pack up and leave Minnesota, we shouldn’t give them tax breaks to go.”
Other posters on Truth Social were particularly vehement about Walz’s connections to China, saying that they were evidence of a shared ideological affinity with the country’s ruling party.
“Who would be afraid of walz?? He got his socialism roots while in China and he hasn’t stopped bending over for them yet!” posted @gnomes2001. “Is there anyone with common sense left in the demonrat party? Serious question.”
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