House Republicans suspicious of Walz’s time in China as they target Beijing as chief adversary

WASHINGTON – Republicans’ tough-on-China stance was on full display during Congress’ first week back in Washington after more than a month’s-long August recess.

They considered dozens of China-focused bills in an attempt to curb Beijing’s influence on everything from drones to electric vehicles to buying U.S. farmland.

But even before so-called “China week,” the Republican-led House Oversight Committee launched a probe into Gov. Tim Walz regarding China, highlighting what is likely to become a key line of attack against the Democratic vice presidential candidate.

“We’d like to know more. I don’t think he’s been forthcoming about why he spent so much time and took so many groups to China, and by accounts, he’s said very favoring things about China to his students over the years,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky. “We find that concerning.”

Walz moved to China in 1989 to teach English and was one of the country’s first government-sanctioned American educators. He later launched Educational Travel Adventures Inc., a company that brought U.S. students to China on educational trips each year from the early 1990s through the early 2000s. Walz has visited the country more than 30 times.

Comer thinks Walz’s frequent trips to China raise questions about Beijing’s influence on the governor’s decisionmaking, a claim the Walz campaign denies.

“Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the [Chinese Communist Party], fought for human rights and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first,” Walz spokesperson Teddy Tschann said in a statement.

The Republican chairman asked FBI Director Christopher Wray in August to investigate Walz, asking in a letter that the agency provide “all documents and communications in the FBI’s possession” that would shed light on Chinese entities or individuals Walz may have “engaged or partnered” with.

The FBI has yet to respond and the committee has not scheduled a hearing related to its probe, Comer said. The FBI declined to comment on the committee’s request.

“I think the odds that the FBI has information pertaining to Walz’s numerous trips to China would be very high,” Comer said.

Some U.S.-China experts think the probe is unlikely to go anywhere.

Walz frequented China during a period when the United States was on friendly terms with the country.

“We had a different view back then, and it was a consensus view. We didn’t see China as an adversary,” said Derek Scissors, a China scholar and self-described “China hawk” from the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.

Former President Bill Clinton launched a period of “constructive engagement” with China during his first year in office in 1993, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. He sought to forge a stronger trade relationship with Beijing, which led to the country joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Scissors said it’s unfair to apply current thinking to Walz’s travel back then. The committee is “acting as if we had that view in 1995 or in 2005 and we didn’t,” Scissors said of the period Walz frequented China.

The early ‘90s was a time when student exchange with China was common, said Robert Daly, director of the nonpartisan Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

“That activity was all conducted and was seen as being in the American national interest,” he said.

“I would be surprised if this probe yielded anything about these activities, other than what Governor Walz and his students have themselves described,” Daly continued.

During Walz’s six terms in Congress, he often criticized China’s human rights abuses.

He was a member of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, a group that looks at human rights issues in the country. He also held meetings with high-profile activists from China, Hong Kong and Tibet, including the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile, the Dalai Lama, whom China accuses of being a separatist.

Walz co-sponsored the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2017, a bill that mandates an annual report on Hong Kong to Congress to determine whether it has enough autonomy from China to justify the U.S. giving it separate treatment.

“I think that he had a personal fascination with the culture, the religion, all of that,” said Mankato resident Mark Rockswold, who traveled to China with Walz in the summer of 2003 on a student exchange trip. “I don’t know that it’s more complicated than that.”

Fellow Mankato native Joe Brown also visited China with Walz in the summer of 1999, and doesn’t think there is any merit to the GOP-led probe.

“Probes such as the one that’s going on seem to be part and parcel to our politics nowadays,” Brown said.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said he is opposed to Comer’s probe, calling it “completely political.” He foresees it will not be the last Republican-led probe into the Democratic ticket.

“It’s an unfortunate, although completely predictable, turn of events,” Raskin said.

Staff writers Ryan Faircloth and Janet Moore contributed to this report.