Alarm bells over Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s deep ties to China are stirring debate on national security and foreign policy amid the 2024 presidential race.
Walz lectured at a state-run Chinese university until 2007, organized student trips to China, and reportedly visited the country 15 times, but allegedly did not properly document his trips with the National Guard, which he was supposed to do as a member of the service with security clearance.
Critics argue Kamala Harris’ choice of running mate presents fears of foreign influence and poses national security concerns, as China is one of America’s biggest foreign threats.
The Harris-Walz campaign did not respond to requests from The College Fix for comment. However, according to a Fox Business article, the campaign has clarified that Walz has visited China around 15 times.
Current Minnesota governor, Walz was a lecturer at a state-run Chinese university until 2007 and has made dozens of trips to the country, according to an August New York Post article.
Walz spent his time as a visiting fellow at Macau Polytechnic University lecturing on international affairs following stints as an English and American culture teacher in Guangdong province, wrote Post journalist Isabel Vincent.
During these trips, Walz was a member of the National Guard and it is “not clear if Walz reported his trips to China to his superiors in the National Guard.”
Congressman Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, is calling for a Pentagon investigation into Walz’s compliance with security clearance protocols.
The Post obtained an August letter from Rep. Banks to Defense Secretary Llyod Austin alleging that “[a]ny individual traveling dozens of times to an adversary nation in a personal capacity while having access to classified information poses an obvious security risk.”
Banks is seeking a Pentagon investigation into whether Walz complied with security clearance protocols requiring him to report his trips to China “some of which took place while he was a senior ranking member of his state’s Army National Guard.”
His letter states that not only would Walz have been required to report the trips, but given the hostile nature of communist China, Walz should have been debriefed following trips.
An Oct. 12 opinion piece by Steven Mosher in the Post states Department of Homeland Security whistleblowers have expressed concerns about Walz’ relationship with China.
Mosher alleges Walz may have been the target of an “elite capture” attempt and that according to Walz himself it was “an official in China’s foreign ministry” that helped him set up his educational travel agency.
Michael Lucchese, founder of Pipe Creek Consulting and former aide to U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, raised similar concerns about Walz in an October Washington Examiner op-ed.
The column is headlined “Great Walz of China: The Democratic vice presidential nominee has a Beijing problem.” It was written shortly after the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate.
It states Walz first traveled to China in 1989 to teach an English course, during which “he fell in love with the country and returned many times throughout the 1990s.”
According to Lucchese, Walz has “heaped praise not just on the Chinese nation but also on Chinese communism as an ideology and system of governance” and worked “with CCP officials to arrange trips for students to China.”
In a phone interview with The College Fix, Lucchese said Walz “has shown a consistent willingness to prioritize trade with China” against the economic interests of the United States.
“I think that instead of prioritizing those trade relationships, instead of prioritizing trade with Japan or Australia or our allies, he has shown a consistent willingness to prioritize trade with China.”
“We’re not going to liberalize the CPP by buying a bunch of manufactured cheap goods from them, right? That seems like a pipe dream,” he said.
On the Democratic ticket’s national security priorities, Lucchese said “Shapiro was a more hawkish choice that Harris could have made.” Choosing Walz shows “Kamala Harris doesn’t really want to stand up to America’s enemies or autocratic regimes aboard,” he said.
“The Walz choice is a concession to the anti-war faction within the Democratic Party,” according to Lucchese.
The New York Post details that the annual student trips started in 1995 when “he and his wife registered a for-profit company in Nebraska to take high-school students on trips to the Communist country.”
But a Minnesota Star Tribune column argues that fears of foreign influence echoed by conservative politicians are overblown, and the trips facilitated by Walz were purely educational.
Laura Yuen wrote that Walz fostered “seeds of empathy, curiosity and engagement” within students and “he had no problem routinely criticizing China’s human rights record when he was a member of Congress.”
Another op-ed in The Hill on Oct. 24 penned by foreign affairs experts argued: “Tim Walz has been a friend to China and likely knows more than most of our diplomatic corps about how the country works and the nature of Chinese society. The Chinese will value having such an interlocutor and it could ultimately turn out to be the difference between war and peace.”
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