Great Walz of China: The Democratic vice presidential nominee has a Beijing problem

Going into the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) seemed to have something of a lead on his Republican counterpart, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH). The Minnesotan came out slightly ahead in favorability polls, whereas the Ohio senator is more than 10 points underwater. It seems that Democrats’ efforts to label Vance “weird” and extreme are working to at least some extent. 

But Walz, like his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, remains in many ways a total cipher to voters. From his perch in St. Paul, he has advanced one of the most progressive agendas of any state governor in recent memory, but he has somehow managed to build a reputation as some kind of a dispositional centrist. If Republicans want to overcome his folksy Midwestern appeal, they will have to reveal his flawed record to a wider audience.

When it comes to national security, Walz is weakest on perhaps the most important question facing the United States: competition with the Chinese Communist Party. From his earliest days as a public figure, Walz has advocated a mealymouthed detente with the CCP — a position very much out of touch with the great body of voters who are increasingly wary of the Beijing regime. By resurfacing his record and public statements, conservatives have an opportunity here to clearly define Walz as weak on China and put forward arguments for the stronger foreign policy most of the public favors.

Walz’s relationship with China began in 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when he traveled there to teach a high school English course. The program he worked for was sponsored by Harvard University, but all the content was reviewed and approved by CCP censors. By Walz’s own account, he fell in love with the country and returned many times throughout the 1990s. Like Vermont senator and ardent socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT) traveling to the Soviet Union with his new wife at the height of the Cold War, Walz even took his bride to China on their honeymoon. 

Read more in the Washington Examiner.