Walz praised Chinese communism as a system where “everybody shares”

As a social studies teacher, Walz tells students that everyone in China gets free rice

As a high school teacher in the 1990s, Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz appeared to praise life under Chinese communism, telling his students that it is a system in which “everyone shares” and gets food and free housing

“It means everyone is equal and everyone shares,” Walz said during a lecture on China's communist system in November 1991. “The doctor and the construction worker do the same thing. The Chinese government and the place where work offer housing and 14 kg or about 30 pounds of rice per month They receive food and housing.”

Walz's comments were informed in a 1991 article in Nebraska's Alliance Times-Herald which focused on his work on student exchange programs in China. At the time, Walz was teaching social studies at a high school in Nebraska.

The unearthed comments could heighten concerns about the Democratic vice presidential nominee's relationship with China, where he has traveled extensively for decades and which he says he does not see as an adversary.

Michael Sobolik, China expert and author of Counter China's Big Gamesaid Walz's comments to the students were a “shockingly naive depiction of the Chinese Communist Party government.”

“American students need to learn the horrible truths of communism and the horrors this dangerous ideology has wrought over the past century,” Sobolik said. “Governor Walz should clarify his comments and share his impression of communism in 2024.”

Walz's rosy description of communism in China is similar to his recent controversial claim that “one person's socialism is another person's neighborhood.” It also reflects his long-standing ties to the country.

The candidate “has always been fascinated by Communist China,” according to a profile of him published in Nebraska. Star-Herald in 1994. As a child, he recalled seeing “pictures of Mao Tse-tung, hung in public places and carried in parades,” the paper reports.

Walz first traveled to China on a year-long teaching grant in 1989, months after the Chinese Communist Party killed thousands of pro-democracy activists and student protesters in Tiananmen Square.

Despite the country's turmoil, Walz—then a 25-year-old National Guardsman—wrote in a letter to one of his former college professors that he was “being treated like a king” in China.

In China, Walz said he received a salary that was twice that of Chinese professors, was given an apartment decorated with a color television and had the only air-conditioned residence on campus. He said they also threw him parties on his birthday and Christmas.

“No matter how long I live, I will never be treated this well again,” he said Times-Herald after arriving home. “They gave me more gifts than I could take home. It was an excellent experience.” A newspaper photo showed Walz posing with one of his gifts, a paper fan inscribed with a poem from the widow of Communist Party-allied revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen.

After returning to the United States in the early 1990s, Walz began leading trips to China for American high school students, with the support of the Chinese government. The trips were “arranged by a friend of Walz's in China's foreign affairs department,” the Star-Herald informed at the time. The Chinese government also provided part of the funding for the program, according to a 1993 article in Star-Herald.

Walz and his wife Gwen celebrated their wedding on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, with Gwen Walz saying her husband “wanted to have a date he'll always remember.” The Walzes spent their honeymoon in China. They also founded a travel company, Educational Travel Adventures Inc., specializing in trips to China.

Tim Walz maintained public ties to Chinese educational institutes until at least 2007, when he was elected to Congress. He was a visiting scholar at Macau Polytechnic University until 2007, according to reports.

His connections to China have drawn scrutiny from Republican lawmakers. On Friday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray who is investigating “longstanding connections to Walz [Chinese Communist Party]-connected entities and officials.” Comer said Walz could be “susceptible to the Party's strategy of elite capture, which seeks to co-opt influential figures.”

Walz has more recently promoted US cooperation with China, saying in 2016 that he does not believe “that China necessarily needs to be [in] an adversarial relationship” with the U.S. In another video discovered by Republicans, Walz he said is “quite a friend of China”.