Yuen: Tim Walz's trips to China should not be demonized - StarTribune

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Soaking up new perspectives and finding common ground with people halfway around the world isn’t something everyone can do. To have that opportunity as a teenager is a life-changing gift. But these experiences that Walz sought and introduced to his students are now a political liability.

Conservative leaders are suspicious of his time spent in China. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Walz owes an explanation “about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China.” House Republicans have launched an investigation into Walz’s ties there, suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party may have targeted him as part of a long-term strategy to co-opt influential figures in the United States. (This theory fails to consider that Walz was an unknown 25-year-old educator from Nebraska when he first traveled there for a yearlong teaching job.)

As outlandish as this political tomfoolery sounds, you know who isn’t surprised? Ross Pomeroy and his friends. They were among the couple dozen Mankato West High School students who traveled to China with Walz for about two weeks in 2005.

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By train and boat, by bus and bike, the students witnessed the vast paradox that is China, from the dense urban cities and the Forbidden City to the wood huts and rice paddies. Pomeroy has no recollection of Walz trying to indoctrinate him. In fact, he has no memory of Walz saying much at all about the Chinese government on the trip.

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Under the Walzes’ encouragement, Grieshaber, until then a lifelong picky eater, cleaned his plate and tried every dish the group shared around a big lazy Susan. Grieshaber learned that he loved eel (which a Guangzhou local described as a “sea snake”). He discovered that a sense of adventure and curiosity was integral to who he was. As for Walz, “you could see how happy he was,” Grieshaber recalled. “He was happiest when he could see his students light up. Part of the China trip was about seeing students encounter things for the first time and open their eyes to a very different world.”

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Walz, as a teacher, seemed to know that there can be a vast difference between everyday people and those who rule them. He may have not told his students what to think of the Chinese government, but he had no problem routinely criticizing China’s human rights record when he was a member of Congress. In 2017, he was the only House Democrat to champion the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which aimed to protect pro-democracy protesters there. He described a 2016 meeting with the Dalai Lama as a “life-changing lunch.”

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