Tim Walz: “Sleeper Agent,” Taiwan Relations, and Travel Itineraries
Does Walz Believe in the One China Policy?
Comment from Jordan on Walz as “Sleeper Agent”
From the Washington Post:
“This is a guy that really has embraced China’s view of the world, the Chinese ideology, which is communism,” Rep. James Comer continued. His evidence for this? That Walz has government pensions instead of owning private-sector stocks. “This guy is very dependent on the government,” he said. “And I believe he thinks that China, the business model that China’s had, might be the ideal model for the United States.”
“It’s very possible that China would be grooming an up-and-coming rising star in the political process,” Comer said later in the discussion, “to try to have a foothold in our government.”
These allegations are absurd.
Here’s what Walz said to the Nebraska Star Herald in 1990 after returning from his year in China.
Now recall Trump’s comment on Tiananmen in March 1990 in a Playboy interview.
I could not agree more with Walz. Investing energy to understand China, like Walz did in his educational trips and decade of service on the human rights-focused Congressional-Executive Commission on China, is essential to crafting smart policy. What this country needs in its approach to China is a clear-eyed view of the Party alongside a genuine sympathy for Chinese people. Eliding any distinction between PRC citizens and the Party is not just incorrect and offensive — it’s bad politics that serves the Party’s interests.
Republican Select Committee Chair Rep. Mike Gallagher got it. From an excerpt from his ChinaTalk interview last year: “We asked the Speaker to change the name [of the Select Committee from China] to ‘Chinese Communist Party’ to at least make the point that this wasn’t some effort designed to go against the Chinese people, to make the distinction between the Party and the people.”
JD Vance, on the other hand, seems to think that just knowing Chinese Americans, to say nothing of PRC citizens, is suspect.
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from Walz’s 2014 statement to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China during a Tiananmen anniversary event.
I’m looking at the title of this, “Tiananmen at 25: the Enduring Influence on U.S.-China Relations on China’s Political Development.” I think that may be true to a certain level, but I’m also very cognizant there's an entire generation of Americans who don’t understand what happened there, they don’t understand what the impact of it was. I think many of them, once they knew, would stand proudly with those fighters of human rights. I think for all of us if we do not commemorate and we do not remember those who were willing to risk all, it puts all of us at risk of history forgetting the lessons that were there.
For me, it certainly had an enduring influence on me. As a young man, I was just going to teach high school in Foshan in Guangdong province and was in Hong Kong in May 1989. As the events were unfolding, several of us went in. I still remember the train station in Hong Kong. There was a large number of people — especially Europeans, I think — very angry that we would still go after what had happened. But it was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels, certainly people to people, and the opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that critical time seemed to me to be really important…
The lesson to me, though, was when you watch these things happen, you can justify and make up in your mind any reason possible that you didn’t stand up or that something didn't happen or that no one remembered. So, as being part of this commission, I take the charge very seriously, both looking at the human rights records, looking at all those things, but clearly understanding the human rights and the friendships and the people that I know. It's critical to get this right.
If there was ever anyone in charge of grooming Walz, they got fired a long time ago.
Teacher Tim and Gossip from Guangdong
The following is reporting by ChinaTalk Editor Lily Ottinger
The DNC is underway, and we’re back with more details on Tim Walz and his relationship to China. We’ve got vintage photographs, testimony from coworkers, and an analysis of Gov. Walz’s view on cross-Strait relations. Here’s part 1 if you missed it.
You’ve probably already heard that Walz spent a year in China with the WorldTeach program and that he was nicknamed “Fields of China.” In Cantonese, “Fields of China” 田華 is pronounced Tin4 Waa4, which of course sounds like “Tim Walz.”
The Initium interviewed one of Walz’s old coworkers, “Mrs. Pang” 庞老师, for more anecdotes. Here’s a translated snippet of Mrs. Pang’s reflections:
“Everyone treated him like a star. … We all had a good impression of him. …When he came, he was very young and had a sunny smile. Decades later, when I saw his campaign photo, his smile was the same as before. When he smiled, his mouth corners were raised, and the muscles of his cheeks were smiling. His smile was very contagious.”
At Foshan No. 1 Middle School, Walz participated in many activities. Teacher Pang recalled that Walz was a key member of the school’s faculty basketball team.
Mrs. Pang continues,
On Christmas, which the Chinese do not celebrate, some students and friends put decorations on a pine tree and brought it to Walz’s room.
Teacher Pang recalled: “[Colleagues] often laughed at him, because the moment he got his salary he would go to the store at the school gate to buy ice cream.”
She also pointed out that Walz did not speak Chinese when he first arrived, “But later he gradually learned some Mandarin and Cantonese. An old teacher who also lived in the staff building recalled that one day at noon, [Walz] bought a bag of lychees and said to him in Mandarin, ‘Eat some lychees, my treat! 请你吃荔枝’”
NPR interviewed another coworker of Walz’s, Lee Nai-Tim, who taught Chinese language and literature at Foshan.
Lee recalled Walz, with a big smile, saying in Cantonese: “Both you and I are named Tim.” … Walz was the only teacher at the school who was provided with an air conditioner, but he often left it off.
“At that time, our electricity supply was sometimes unreliable,” Lee says. “Mr. Walz would turn off his air conditioner because when he used it, the lights nearby would dim. It was very hot in the summer, but he chose to go without air conditioning.”
Upon arriving home, Walz had nothing but positive things to say about his experience teaching in China. I wonder if he still has this fan:
In subsequent years, Walz and his wife have traveled to China at least 30 times. Here’s Tim showing his wife around the Foshan campus and reconnecting with former coworkers:
From Walz’s interviews and advertisements in local newspapers, we can confirm that he traveled all over Asia in the 1990s. On one such trip in 1992, Walz traveled to Taiwan.
During his time in politics, Walz has avoided making direct comments about Taiwan’s status — but his actions as governor speak for themselves.
Minnesota-Taiwan Relations
Walz put in serious work to expand Minnesota’s ties with Taiwan relations during his time as governor. In 2022 alone, Minnesota exported $610 million worth of goods to Taiwan.
When China slashed imports of US soybeans at the height of Trump’s trade war, Walz personally negotiated a trade agreement to sell surplus Minnesota soybeans to Taiwan.
In 2020, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture filmed a video in celebration of the 109th anniversary of the Republic of China. It’s unclear if Walz instructed the commissioner to make this video (it looks like he might be reading off a teleprompter), but it’s interesting that he uses “Taiwan” and “Republic of China” interchangeably:
In 2024, Walz officiated a Taiwanese company’s acquisition of Minnesota-based drug manufacturer Upsher-Smith.
Taiwan sent the state of Minnesota 100,000 masks at the height of the Covid pandemic. Minnesota’s state legislature formed the Taiwan Friendship Caucus in 2021. During the opening ceremony, Governor Walz personally thanked Johnson Chiang 姜森 for the mask donation. Chiang was the director of TECRO Chicago, Taiwan’s cultural center which *definitely* isn’t an embassy.
In 2024, the Minnesota State Senate passed a resolution “reaffirming its commitment to strengthening and deepening the sister ties between the state of Minnesota and Taiwan.”
The resolution ends with this statement, which is now a crime punishable by death in China:
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Senate continues to support Taiwan's meaningful participation in international organizations, such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, ICAO, UNFCCC, and INTERPOL, which impact the health, safety, and well-being of the people of Taiwan, and supports Taiwan’s aspiration to make more contributions in international societies.
To be clear, not all Minnesota-Taiwan ties can be attributed to Walz. 3M, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing behemoth, has been investing in Taiwan since 1969.
Chinese state media has yet to report on any of this…but if and when they do, ChinaTalk subscribers will be the first to find out.
For more of Tim Walz on China, check out our Part 1.
Great post and thorough deep-dive into Walz's past relations with China. Those that are arguing that Walz will be a Chinese asset haven't done their homework.
Excellent post on Walz. Thanks for clarifying!