Walz has “consistently appeased and conciliated the Chinese Communist Party,” said Sen. Tom Cotton
Senator Tom Cotton suggested China “cultivated” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over a period of decades, as part of a broader strategy to gain influence over American politics.
In an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, Senator Cotton, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, took Walz to task for his insistence that America and China “don’t need to have an adversarial relationship.”
“Tim Walz has a terrible record on China, just like Kamala Harris does. He’s consistently appeased and conciliated the Chinese Communist Party and has repeatedly said we don’t need to have an adversarial relationship with China, when China is insistant on have an adversarial relationship with the United States, because they want to replace us as the world’s dominant superpower” Cotton said.
“What the Chinese Communist Party did with Tim Walz going back 35 years is a classic example of how they cultivate younger, local state leaders, teachers and others to try to get mouth pieces in American politics and maybe one day hit it big if that person goes on to be say, a congressman or governor, or Vice Presidential nominee.
“This is why he needs to answer questions about his relationship with China, and why Kamala Harris needs to come out and answer questions too about what she would do as president.”
China is insistent on having an adversarial relationship with the United States because they want to replace us the world’s dominant super power.
Any wishful thinking otherwise is dangerously naive. pic.twitter.com/h7hs7sIyKB
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) August 11, 2024
In contrast to calls from Republicans for Walz to explain the nature and extent of his ties with China and the CCP, the mainstream media has attempted to put a positive spin on Walz’s long relationship with China, which comprises over 30 trips to the country across a period of four decades, including for his honeymoon. Walz and his wife led a number of school trips to China together while they were teachers in Nebraska.
The New York Times led yesterday with “Tim Walz’s long relationship with China defies easy stereotypes,” and Bloomberg said, “Tim Walz knows China. That’s good for the US.”
“That deep history of engagement with China reflects a lesser-known international dimension of the Democratic vice-presidential candidate,” according to the Times.
“If elected vice president, Mr. Walz would bring to the White House unusually extensive personal experience in China—a history that supporters say could be an asset at a time of volatile relations between Washington and Beijing.
“But the campaign has so far made little mention of Mr. Walz’s experience there, even as it has leaned into depictions of the Minnesota governor as an avuncular Midwestern dad, coach and teacher. And it has yet to lay out how Vice President Kamala Harris or Mr. Walz would handle China, which both the Biden and Trump administrations have treated with toughness.”
The Minnesota Governor has spoken before Congress on multiple occasions about the importance of expanding trade with China; although in recent years he has dropped earlier claims that economic growth would make China a more liberal nation.
Walz is also facing calls to explain misrepresentations about his military service, including his rank and record of deployments.
Newly resurfaced video from a hearing in 2008 shows Minnesota Governor Tim Walz implying heavily that he suffered PTSD from deployment to Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Walz was speaking to the family of a Gold Star veteran at the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Veterans and Mental Health when he made remarks that suggested he had personal experience of PTSD after serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004 with the National Guard.
“I can tell you this, having been one of those that came back. We were in support of OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom]… when we came back, they showed us the horse whisperer and told us to be nice when we went home. And that was the extent of it. That was in 2004.”
Walz has been accused of “stolen valor” for inflating his rank and the importance of his operational deployments. Walz never took part in Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for US operations directly in and above Afghan territory, but was posted to Italy with the National Guard in a support role.
