NPR News

Walz exaggerated how many times he visited China as a teacher

NPR | By Clay Masters

Published October 1, 2024 at 7:50 PM EDT

Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21, 2024 in Chicago, Ill.

Walz has a long relationship with China and used to regularly talk about the trips he took there as a teacher in Nebraska and Minnesota.

Walz used to claim he'd been there "about 30" or "dozens" of times, but after APM Reports questioned how that was possible, his campaign acknowledged the real number of trips from the United States to China was "closer to 15."

Walz lived in China for about a year, teaching in the southern city of Foshan. His stint with the nonprofit organization WorldTeach started in the summer of 1989, just two months after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Starting in 1993, he led annual summer trips to China for students in the Nebraska and Minnesota high schools where he taught.

Walz once described being in Hong Kong in May 1989, during the student uprising that culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre, the reporting from APM Reports notes — an assertion that is belied by newspaper accounts at the time.

A photograph published May 16, 1989, showed Walz working in the National Guard Armory in Alliance, Neb.