House Republicans have announced an investigation into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over what they say are his “connections” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Walz, who is the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, spent about a year teaching high school in China decades ago as part of Harvard University’s WorldTeach program. While in college, he took classes in East Asia studies.
Five years after teaching in China, Walz and his wife, teacher Gwen Walz, spent their honeymoon in China while simultaneously leading two high school tour groups. They later set up a company called Educational Travel Adventures, which organized annual student trips to China until 2003.
While there does not appear to be any personal connection between Walz and the CCP, Republican Representative James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said Friday he was opening an investigation into Walz’s “longstanding connections to Chinese Communist Party entities and officials,” a committee press release said.
CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP; ROBYN BECK/AFP
“Americans should be deeply concerned that Governor Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, has a longstanding and cozy relationship with China,” Comer said in the release.
He continued: “Mr. Walz has visited China dozens of times, served as a fellow at a Chinese institution that maintains a devotion to the CCP, and spoke alongside the President of a Chinese organization the State Department exposed as a CCP effort to influence and co-opt local leaders.”
Comer went on: “FBI briefers recently informed the Committee that the Bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force investigates CCP activity that is similar to China’s engagement with Governor Walz. The American people deserve to fully understand how deep Governor Walz’s relationship with China goes.”
Newsweek reached out by email to Walz’s office and the Harris-Walz campaign for comment on Friday.
In a Friday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Comer said Walz’s now decades old travel to China and later activities, like speaking at the 2019 U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association convention in Minnesota, make “him susceptible to the [CCP’s] strategy of elite capture.”
This activity also “raises questions about possible CCP influence in his decision-making,” the letter said.
While Walz did travel to China many times during his career as a teacher, he has expressed clear criticism of the Chinese government, which is controlled by the CPP, because of its record on human rights. As a congressman, Walz co-sponsored multiple related bills, including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2017.
Walz has also argued in favor of using diplomacy to find common ground with China, saying during a 2016 interview that he does not “fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship.”
