a425couple
2024-10-01 21:56:14 UTC
Reply
PermalinkConstant!! "Weapons I carried in War" = Bullshit.
True statement I can make = "I have walked across Tienanmen Square
and looked marching Chinese troops in the eye." True, but thousands
of normal peaceful time tourists can say the same thing.
from
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/01/politics/tim-walz-china-tiananmen-square/index.html
Walz’s claim that he was in Hong Kong during Tiananmen Square protests
undercut by unearthed newspaper reports
Aaron Pellish
By Aaron Pellish, CNN
5 minute read
Updated 2:00 PM EDT, Tue October 1, 2024
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash in Savannah,
Georgia, on August 29, 2024. Will Lanzoni/CNN
CNN
—
Newly unearthed reports contradict previous claims made by Minnesota
Gov. Tim Walz about his travel to China, including a claim that the
Democratic vice presidential nominee was in Hong Kong for a teaching
position in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that
ended in hundreds of protesters killed by the Chinese government.
The discrepancy over Walz’s relationship to China comes ahead of
Tuesday’s vice presidential debate in New York, where Republican allies
of Ohio Sen. JD Vance have signaled that the GOP vice presidential
nominee may use Walz’s history in China to attack his rival. Walz
regularly organized and chaperoned trips to China during his time as a
teacher prior to entering politics.
Walz had previously said he visited Hong Kong in “May of ’89,” weeks
before the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. During a 2014 hearing
of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China honoring the 25th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, Walz, then a Minnesota
congressman, appeared to recall specific details of his trip to the
region at that time.
“As a young man, I was just going to teach high school in Foshan in
Guangdong, and was in Hong Kong in May of ’89,” he said. “And as the
events were unfolding, several of us went in. And I still remember the
train station in Hong Kong.”
“The opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that critical time
seemed to me to be really important. And it was a very interesting
summer to say the least. Because if you recall, as we moved in that
summer and further on and the news blackouts and things that went on,
you certainly can’t black out news from people if they want to get it,”
he continued.
Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
delivers remarks at an election campaign event in Superior, Wisconsin,
on September 14, 2024.
Related article
Heading into the vice presidential debate, Tim Walz is fighting nerves
Walz’s 2014 claim that he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square
protests has been repeated in media reports. But contemporaneous
newspaper reports first resurfaced by the Washington Free Beacon, a
conservative news outlet, place Walz in Nebraska around that time. An
issue of the Alliance Times-Herald dated May 16, 1989, features a photo
of Walz touring a Nebraska National Guard storeroom. In the photo’s
caption, the paper notes that Walz “will take over the job” of staffing
the storeroom from a retiring guardsman and “will be moving to
Alliance,” Nebraska. A separate newspaper article about Walz’s planned
trip to China published by a Nebraska-based outlet in April 1989
reported that he planned to travel to China in early August of that year.
When asked by CNN if Walz was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square
protests, the Harris campaign was unable to provide evidence to
substantiate Walz’s claim.
The contradiction was first reported by Minnesota Public Radio News and
APM Reports.
Walz also appears to have exaggerated the number of times he’s travelled
to China. In a 2016 interview, he said he’s visited China “about 30
times.” In another meeting of the Congressional-Executive Commission on
China, in 2016, Walz claimed to have visited Hong Kong “dozens and
dozens and dozens of times.”
When asked for clarification on how many times Walz traveled to China, a
Harris campaign spokesperson told CNN the number of trips Walz took to
China is “likely closer to 15.”
China has long held a significant place in Walz’s life since he first
traveled to the country in 1989. Walz and his wife, Gwen Walz, were
married on June 4, 1994 – the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square
massacre and spent their honeymoon leading students in an educational
trip to China, something Walz did regularly during his time as a teacher
before joining Congress. Ahead of their wedding, Gwen Walz told the
Nebraska-based Star-Herald newspaper that they planned to get married on
the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary because “he wanted to have a
date he’ll always remember.”
Since joining the Harris campaign, Walz has not spoken at length about
China or his history of travel to the country.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a campaign rally in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, on September 21, 2024.
Related article
Fact check: Walz makes false claims about Vance, Trump and Project 2025
Republicans in recent days have circled Walz’s ties to China as a target
for further scrutiny. Jason Miller, a senior advisor to Donald Trump’s
campaign, indicated Monday that he expects Vance to attack Walz for his
history of trips to China.
“Tiananmen Tim! Funny they’re changing this now – we were planning on
calling him out for this at the debate tomorrow night! Anything else you
want to fess up to, Tim???,” Miller said in a social media post in
response to clarification offered by the Harris campaign about Walz’s
trips to China.
Congressional Republicans have joined the Trump campaign in calling into
question Walz’s ties to China. House Oversight Chairman James Comer
subpoenaed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday for
documents related to Walz as part of allegations made by “whistleblower
disclosures” provided to the committee that Walz has ties to the Chinese
Communist Party. The subpoena is the latest step by House Republicans to
spotlight Walz’s ties to China through a probe that began in August
shortly after he joined the Democratic ticket.
The inconsistencies around Walz’s travel to China and Hong Kong mark the
latest instance in which the governor’s past comments have been revealed
to be inaccurate since he became the Democratic vice presidential
nominee. In August, a Harris campaign spokesperson said Walz “misspoke”
in a 2018 video in which he said he handled assault weapons “in war.”
Later that month, Gwen Walz clarified that the couple had used a
fertility treatment other than in vitro fertilization to conceive after
her husband had suggested they had used IVF.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to accurately reflect Tim Walz’s
past claims of travel to Asia in 1989. He claimed he was in Hong Kong
during the Tiananmen Square protests.