The nominee for U.S. vice president on the Democrat ticket may be an excellent example of the saying “Big help with a little badmouth.”
That’s not Confucius, it’s Chinese communist wisdom. And it means that those who help Beijing in a big way get leeway to badmouth the regime without making themselves into an enemy.
Tim Walz has made good use of the leeway given for giving big help. He has visited Tibet, calling for respect for its culture and Tibetan autonomy within China (not an end to Chinese occupation of Tibet though). He has criticized Beijing’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea (while stressing the “many areas of cooperation that we can work on”). He has “called for the release of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo” (but who died imprisoned). As a congressman, Walz “cosponsored a resolution expressing concern about reports of Chinese state-sanctioned organ harvesting” (“expressing concern about reports”).
All that adds up to “a little badmouth” for sure.
Only so far
There are limits to Walz’s badmouthing, however. When confronted on Chinese atrocities, for instance, Walz gets defensive.
Author Peter Schweizer noted on Fox News that Walz “engages in this ridiculous moral equivalence. On the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when he was on the floor of Congress…he brought this up. He said, yeah, the Tiananmen Square massacre happened, so every country has done this sort of thing. And he brought up Wounded Knee.”
But let’s look at more of the big help.
Walz invited Chinese diplomats to his inauguration as governor of Minnesota. This was an odd move and a bold political statement.
Then Walz traveled to China on a trade junket as President Trump imposed tariffs. Like the communists, he opposed these tariffs vigorously. “There’s just no substitute for 1.6 billion consumers who are hungry to get our China trade negotiations normalized,” said Walz.
Following this anti-tariff trip he hosted and spoke at the national convention of the US-China Peoples Friendship Association in Minneapolis. The USCPFA started out as a communist front organization and speaks laudingly on its current home page “about the Role that USCPFA played in the U.S. Recognition of the Peoples Republic of China going back to 1972.” The Association is likely still great for networking.
But nothing says “big help” like big money. As governor and chairman of the state pension fund, Walz increased Minnesota pension investments in China by 70% for a total of $900 million worth of Minnesota money in the last three years. He made the pensions of Minnesotans dependent on the state of the Chinese economy.
No, not Harvard
The media don’t know what to make of the Walz-CCP nexus. For example, it was interesting to watch explanations of Walz’s student trips to China uncovered in layers, mainly by independent reports.
● Walz obtained a teaching position “through a program at Harvard University, according to his congressional biography.”
● Actually, though, this program “was started by former Harvard University students”—not by Harvard.
● Before the end of his in-country teaching gig, Walz thought of bringing students to China.
● “As a high school teacher [in the USA], Walz…organized trips for students to China, which received some funding from the Chinese government.”
● The trips were run by Mr. and Mrs. Walz through a company they owned.
● “By Walz’s own admission, it was unusual that the [Chinese] government ‘paid a large part of the cost.’ ”
● Uh oh—not really a surprise because a “friend” helped Walz get the financial help from China before he left his original teaching assignment there.
● “This ‘friend’ worked in China’s Foreign Affairs Department, which is routinely used to recruit foreigners.” A friend in need is a friend indeed.
So the careless reader would think that Walz was bringing students to China under a Harvard program when he was actually bringing them to China at the behest of the communist regime.
Grooming
Senator Marco Rubio has suggested that “Walz is an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders.” Look beyond Walz in these trips. You could say he’s delivering scores of candidates for grooming year after year.
Currently, conservative congressmen and pundits seem more interested in the cloak-and-dagger aspects than the agent-of-influence aspects of Walz and China. “Walz’s frequent trips to China have fueled unfounded speculation that he was a spy or nefariously linked to the Chinese state,” says Time magazine.
But consider the fact that Walz served in the National Guard from 1981 to 2005. He took his China “Harvard” teaching position in 1989. A couple of questions come up given the 30 or more trips to China after 1989. Did he have a security clearance, and did he follow the foreign travel notification procedures? If not, why not?
It’s too late for him to lose that clearance assuming he got it, but he can still be denied a new one as vice president.
More interesting is Walz’s professorship at Macau Polytechnic University, which ended in 2007. There appears to be overlap with National Guard service. We do not have a start date for his stint at Macau Polytechnic, and there is a lack of reporting. How did it come about? Did he have National Guard permission for this assignment? What were the pay and benefits?
More to come
Walz’s silence on the China connection has even his would-be defenders in the press running to old newspaper clippings to find quotes that might rationalize his actions. He himself remains adamantly silent. Author Schweizer says, “To me, it’s that he’s digging in his heels, that he does not want to address this issue. To me, it speaks to an issue of character. It also speaks to an issue of arrogance.”
And so Congress is starting a Walz investigation. They should first reach for the FBI file. Anyone with 30 or more trips to China has one, and it’s going to be rather large and surely filled with many interesting facts. Let’s learn about Mr. Walz. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
