by John Schindler at Washington Examiner
Vice President Kamala Harris’s selection of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate was met with glee by many Democrats — but also by Republicans. The Left views Walz as a Midwestern progressive whose Minnesota-nice persona will help Harris win contested states.
But alongside a left-wing record that is sure to attract Republican campaign fire, Walz’s deep affection for Communist China is also likely to attract attention.
Shortly after finishing his undergraduate degree in his native Nebraska in 1989, Walz headed to China to teach in a high school in Guangdong Province north of Hong Kong. Asked later about his motivation for this, at a time when few Americans spent time in China, Walz explained, “China was coming, and that’s the reason that I went.” Upon his return home, Walz and his wife established a company called Educational Travel Adventures centered on taking American students to China. Together, the couple visited China every summer until 2003, including spending their honeymoon there, much as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) strangely honeymooned in the Soviet Union. By his admission, Walz has visited the country about 30 times. He’s obviously a Sinophile, and he speaks some Mandarin, too.
Many might ask, so what? Although Democrats insist that Walz had advocated human rights and the cause of Tibet, a bugbear with the communists in Beijing, his long history with China raises uncomfortable questions for anybody who understands how China works.
It was an odd choice to visit China in 1989,…
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