Tim Walz said he went to China ‘dozens’ of times, now his campaign says its ‘closer to 15’

Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said he traveled to China much less than he had initially highlighted in congressional hearings and media interviews. 

“I have been to China dozens of times,” Walz said during a 2016 congressional hearing. “I’ve been there about 30 times,” Walz told an agriculture-focused publication the same year.

However, a Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson recently acknowledged to Minnesota Public Radio that the number was “closer to 15 times.” 

The revision comes amid growing scrutiny from GOP critics over Walz’s potential ties to the People’s Republic of China and its ruling Communist Party. Earlier this month, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., sent a letter renewing pressure on the FBI to produce documents related to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entities or officials that Walz has purportedly engaged with in the past.

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The Harris-Walz campaign is setting the record straight regarding how many times Gov. Tim Walz has visited China. (Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

According to Walz’s own testimony, he first went to China in 1989 amid the Tiananmen Square uprising. Walz was part of the first delegation of American teachers to ever go to the communist nation during the trip. He was a participant in Harvard’s WorldTeach program, which gave Walz the opportunity to live and teach young students in China for a year. 

Walz apparently enjoyed his time in China so much that after transitioning his teaching career to the U.S., Walz continued to take annual trips back to China with his students. Walz eventually set up a company with his wife Gwen, called Educational Travel Adventures, Inc., which was dedicated to taking students on trips to China and other international destinations. The two even honeymooned in China on one of their trips in 1993. Walz’s annual trips with students took place between 1993 and the early 2000s, before he began running for public office.  

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Walz and his wife dissolved their student-travel company after he won his seat in Congress in 2006. However, Walz’s China experience was a matter of pride for the now-vice presidential candidate when he was trying to join Congress. 

Walz’s campaign website at the time, for instance, highlighted his work as a visiting fellow at Macau Polytechnic University, a university in China with ties to the CCP. 

“What we need in education, what we need in the military, and what we need when I’m fostering cultural exchanges with China, is real solutions,” Walz also said when he debated incumbent GOP Rep. Gil Gutknecht in 2006, once again highlighting his work in China.  

However, after Walz became Harris’ running mate this year, Minnesota Public Radio began trying to verify the “dozens” of trips he claimed to have gone on. In the end, they could only verify that about 12 of them had actually occurred. 

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When the news outlet reached out to the Harris campaign for documentation proving the rest of Walz’s trips did indeed take place, instead of offering such proof they acknowledged that Walz had previously exaggerated the number of trips he took to China, and it was actually “closer to 15 times” not “dozens of times.”   

The national flags of the United States and China flutter at the Fairmont Peace Hotel on April 25, 2024 in Shanghai. (Photo by Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images)

Besides apparently misrepresenting how many times he traveled to China, Walz has also been accused of misrepresenting his rank in the Army National Guard as well.

“I’m a retired command sergeant major,” Walz asserted while running for Congress in 2006. However, while Walz did serve briefly with that rank, he retired too early to keep it. Walz’s retirement also prevented him from deploying to the Middle East, another point of criticism against the vice presidential candidate who has suggested that he saw combat. Meanwhile, it has been alleged that Walz and his wife have made false assertions about their use of IVF as well.  

A former national guard veteran who reportedly served with Walz told talk show host Megyn Kelly that they think Walz is a “habitual liar.”

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“He’s a habitual liar. He lies about everything. He lies about stuff that doesn’t make sense.” 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign but did not hear back prior to publication time.