(Credit: Daily Caller News Foundation)
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, welcomed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials into his Nebraska classroom while working as a teacher in the 1990s, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.
In February 1996, a delegation of three “educators” from southeast China visited Walz’s Alliance High School social studies class “to study the education system,” according to an unearthed Alliance Times-Herald article. However, the delegation included CCP officials who at the time worked for an institute serving a Chinese influence and intelligence agency, according to a DCNF review of Chinese government records.
(…) Republican lawmakers have been demanding answers from federal authorities about the governor’s ties to the communist nation.
Kentucky Rep. James Comer, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability chairman, sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray in August requesting information on “any Chinese entity or individual with whom Mr. Walz may have engaged or partnered.”
“Governor Tim Walz’s documented relationships with Chinese Communist Party affiliated entities and officials bears hallmarks of a CCP infiltration and influence campaign,” Comer told the DCNF.
“FBI briefers recently informed the Oversight Committee that the Bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force investigates CCP subnational influence operations and activity that is similar to how China has engaged with Governor Walz,” Comer said. “The American people deserve to fully understand how deep Governor Walz’s relationship with the CCP goes and the Oversight Committee will continue to press for answers.”
(…) Identified as being affiliated with Macao Political Institute, Ning Ziheng served as interpreter for Ye Guoqiang and Yi Hongtao, both of whom were members of the Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education, according to the local paper. Located in Guangdong province, the Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education is the “only sports university of higher education in South China,” its archived website states.
(…) The Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education where the three members of the delegation worked — or had worked previously — is listed as a member unit of a Chinese influence and intelligence service, Chinese government records reveal.
(Image created by the DCNF with photo from Alliance Times-Herald)The Guangdong provincial branch of the Chinese People’s Association For Friendship With Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) has repeatedly listed the Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education as a “group member,” including at the time of the 1996 Chinese delegation visit to Nebraska during CPAFFC’s 6th and 7th congresses, which lasted between 1995 and 2005.
Federal authorities characterize CPAFFC as an “affiliate” or “subordinate” of a Chinese influence and intelligence service called the United Front Work Department (UFWD). In 2020, the State Department warned that CPAFFC is a “Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments” that has “sought to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.”
(…) The Alliance Times-Herald reported that in 1993 Walz’s group visited the White Swan Hotel, which is located less than 1,000 feet from Guangdong CPAFFC’s headquarters on Shamian Island.
(…) “The Communist Party’s United Front Work Department has been grooming, wooing, and romancing Tim Walz for four decades,” China expert and author Gordon Chang told the DCNF. “We cannot allow our enemy to take over the core of our government.”
(Read much more: Independent Journal Review, 10/22/2024) (Archive)