Commentary
Vice presidential candidate and Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz knows a thing or two about China.
He visited China approximately 30 times. Right after his election to Congress in 2006, he joined the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and remained a commissioner until 2018. While maximizing his chances of constructive dialogue with the regime, Walz has also been a critic. Most recently, last year, he criticized Beijing for supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The China commission on which Walz served is generally critical of the country’s human rights abuse, including the regime’s repression of Falun Gong, Tibetans, and Uyghurs. Two years after joining, he said that the regime in China was committing “culturacide” against Tibetans and Uyghurs. He ought to have called it genocide and mentioned Falun Gong as well. Over the years, he could also have given stronger support to Taiwan.
But Walz wrote his Master’s thesis on genocide. He gets credit for encouraging his high school students, when he was a teacher, to think about some of the hardest related topics, including why regimes conduct ethnic cleansing. Most of all, he should get credit for his support of groups in China targeted by the regime for cultural eradication, including Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa.
Support for Falun Gong and Others
Support for Falun Gong is a litmus test of sorts for being tough on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Falun Gong has tens of millions of members around the world and has been an unrelenting critic of the CCP since the latter banned the spiritual practice in 1999. The CCP’s policies range from territorial aggression against neighboring countries to genocide against Chinese people, which are the opposite of the three main principles espoused by Falun Gong: truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.Another test of being tough on China is supporting the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Walz has met the Dalai Lama multiple times, including in 2016. He said the meeting was “life-changing.” Walz sponsored multiple resolutions in support of imprisoned Tibetans and human rights advocates and against censorship of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was the only Democratic co-sponsor of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in 2017. The year prior, Walz said the United States should “stand firm” against Beijing’s South China Sea grab.
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In 2012, as a member of Congress, Walz attended a China commission hearing on the repression of Falun Gong, including forced organ harvesting. Three years later, Walz co-sponsored a House bill against forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. H. Res. 343 expressed concern “regarding persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, including from large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.”
Walz was elected governor of Minnesota in 2019, at which point he started commemorating Falun Dafa Day every year. Most recently, in May 2024, he issued a certificate of recognition that reads: “This certificate is presented to leaders and practitioners of Falun Dafa for their continued commitment to service and for facilitating cultural engagement opportunities in communities across Minnesota and throughout the world. Therefore, with the appreciation and respect of the people of Minnesota, this certificate is presented to: Falun Dafa Day.”
Walz is not the only prominent supporter of Falun Gong. Both major political parties have prominent members who treat Falun Gong members with respect. Former President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was interviewed on The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program in 2021.
A High School Teacher in China
Communist China is a controversial place, and the controversy started for Walz before he even arrived on his first trip there. After his undergraduate degree, he left for Guangdong Province, where he would teach English to Chinese students for a year between 1989 and 1990. But he first transited through Hong Kong. While there, the CCP committed the Tiananmen massacre. Some of his colleagues turned around, including for moral reasons. This was a reasonable choice. All of America should have turned around after that massacre.But Walz carried on to Guangdong. He was shocked but wanted to engage in “people-to-people” diplomacy and show the Chinese that Americans were there for them. He learned a lot in the process. Upon his return, he noted that the Chinese people treated him well but were held back by a lack of “proper leadership.” That improper leadership was, then as now, the CCP. After that first visit, Walz developed his signature style toward China: respectful dialogue accompanied by honest debate and criticism.
That may have been tainted by some partisanship. Just back from China in 1991, Walz explained to his sixth-grade students that China wants to sell products to the United States but will not buy our products. That was an excellent analysis, especially for 1991. However, in 2019, as a governor, he did not support Trump’s tough trade measures against China, which would be necessary to leverage more exports to the country.
From 1994 to 2003, Walz owned a small travel company that he used to help U.S. high school students see China on annual summer trips. He is criticized for accepting sponsorship by the regime in 1993 for the first trip he organized. A news report on the matter by the Star-Herald of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, is somewhat unclear, but it appears that much of the regime sponsorship was in kind (free food, lodging, and transportation once the students arrived in China). The students also used their own money and fundraised for six weeks among local businesses in Scottsbluff to pay what appears to be $1,580 each for air travel.
Walz is criticized for his guidance to the students prior to the trip. “While the point of the trip is to see how China differs from the United States, Walz has told his students to downplay their American-ness,” according to the Star-Herald article. “He wants to avoid stereotypes the Chinese have that every American is rich.”
Walz should not have asked Americans to downplay their Americanness. But, to be fair to Walz, “when in Rome, do as the Romans” is a standard strategy for travelers who seek to blend in and fully experience a culture. American tourists sometimes leave behind expensive belongings and claim to be Canadian, for example, so as not to get targeted by thieves or anti-American sentiment.
Walz also sought to educate the Chinese with his trip. According to the Star-Herald, his students gave classes to Chinese in addition to taking classes. The article noted that “while some capitalism has crept into the Chinese system, most workers still aren’t enjoying the country’s prosperity. By meeting young people from the United States, ‘they’re going to see what’s on the outside,’ [Walz] said.”
Offramp From Conflict
In 2016, Walz said that the United States and China need not be in an “adversarial relationship.” He got in some trouble over this comment. There has been so much scientific and economic cooperation with China that Beijing now exceeds U.S. power by some metrics. However, that same year, he told Congress that China did not open up socially or improve its human rights through business engagement.And Walz is in good company when it comes to trying to reform our adversaries by first attempting friendship. President Ronald Reagan did this with President Mikhail Gorbachev of Russia, and it helped bring down the Berlin Wall and democratize some of the former Soviet republics.
Walz might just be the kind of guy who can use friendliness with an adversary as the first step toward a massive strategic win for the United States: the democratization of China. But if Reagan is the template, Walz better support more military spending than he has in the past. The iron fist of power is, unfortunately, necessary to make the velvet glove of diplomacy truly effective.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
