by Philip Lenczycki
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.
Walz’s longstanding relationship with China has come under increased scrutiny following Vice President Kamala Harris’ August selection of the two-term governor as her running mate. Media reports have since revealed Walz not only misrepresented key details about his China travels, but also appointed a member of a political faction loyal to the CCP to Minnesota’s executive branch.
Neither Walz’s office nor the Harris-Walz campaign responded to multiple requests for comment.
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.”
‘Engagement With The CCP’
During a weeks-long tour of U.S. schools, the three members of the Chinese delegation stopped at the rural Nebraska high school where Walz taught social studies, and where he and his wife had been running a program taking students to China.
“Four years ago we had some Alliance High students in China. We’ve had some each year (since),” the designated interpreter, Ning Ziheng, stated during the 1996 visit, Alliance Times-Herald reported.
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.
While the DCNF found no evidence that Ning Ziheng is a CCP member, the other two had been members of China’s ruling party for decades, according to a DCNF review of Chinese government and academic records.
An archived version of Yi Hongtao’s profile on the Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education website states he joined the CCP in 1976. At the time of the 1996 visit, Yi Hongtao served as the director of the Foreign Affairs Office at Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education and later as a member of the institute’s CCP committee, according to Chinese government records.
A 2021 social media post from the Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education announced that the other delegation member, Ye Guoqiang, had been a CCP member for 56 years — indicating he joined decades before the 1996 Nebraska visit.
Chinese government reports from Guangdong province state Ye Guoqiang served as deputy party secretary in Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education’s CCP committee. Between 1992 and 1997, the institute’s CCP committee published reports authored by Ye Guoqiang, indicating he served as deputy party secretary at the time of the 1996 Nebraska visit.
“Our main purpose is to learn something about education in the states,” said Ning Ziheng of the 1996 trip, according to Alliance Times-Herald. “We will compare it to China and see how we can improve our own education system.”
Alliance High School’s superintendent, Bill Gannon, invited the Chinese delegation to visit the school, Alliance Times-Herald reported. Gannon could not be reached for comment.
“The current school board and administration did not work with Mr. Walz,” Troy Unzicker, superintendent of Alliance Public Schools, told the DCNF by email. “I personally do not know Mr. Walz, so I would be of no help. I am not aware of anyone in the school system that was involved with this.”
During their two days in Alliance, the delegation reportedly first stopped by the Central Elementary School English class of Walz’s wife, Gwen, before visiting Walz’s social studies class. Alliance Times-Herald reported that after visiting Walz’s classroom, the Chinese delegation was slated to watch Alliance High School’s basketball team practice and also had plans to visit local ranches.
“It is interesting to see so much open space. It [America] impresses us a lot,” Ning Ziheng said, according to Alliance Times-Herald. “We think this area is more agricultural. We like this kind of environment.”
Before visiting Nebraska, the delegation toured an unspecified Los Angeles high school, according to Alliance Times-Herald. During a third leg of the trip, the delegation reportedly aimed to visit the University of Northern Iowa.
Ye Guoqiang and Yi Hongtao could not be reached for comment.
‘Grooming, Wooing, And Romancing’
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.
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.”
Over the years, CPAFFC has held numerous sports events for visiting foreign groups at Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education, and, as recently as 2023, reselected the institute as a member unit.
At the time of the Chinese delegation’s 1996 Nebraska visit, the dean of Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education was a CCP official named Chen Shuhua, who then also served as a Guangdong CPAFFC director, Chinese government records show.
Walz had met Chen Shuhua in China at least once before the Chinese delegation’s 1996 visit, and the DCNF discovered that several trips Walz led to China also visited the institute.
A 1995 Alliance High School yearbook pictures Walz, Chen Shuhua and Ning Ziheng together during the school’s second trip to China sharing “a toast of health and prosperity.” The yearbook photo’s caption identifies Chen Shuhua as “President of Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education” and Ning Ziheng as an “Associate Professor of Sports Psychology and main host for the China Trip.”
Walz and his wife met Ning Ziheng as early as 1992, according to a May 26, 1993 Alliance Times-Herald article concerning a then-upcoming trip to China led by Walz.
“The two have been in contact with Mr. Ning Ziheng in regard to this program since August of 1992,” Alliance Times-Herald reported.
“The group is headed for China, with a special invitation from the Chinese government,” the Star-Herald reported on July 25, 1993. “Walz got the idea while working as a teacher in China three years ago. A friend helped contact the authorities, and funding came through the government this April.”
During this 1993 trip, Walz also apparently took his students to Guangzhou Institute of Sports Education and met with Ning Ziheng, according to a review of local Nebraska newspapers.
“Most of the group’s time will be spent at Guangzhou University, where the students will play sports and take classes in Chinese culture,” the Star-Herald reported.
On Aug. 19. 1993, the Alliance Times-Herald reported students had visited “the University of Guangzhou,” with “Mr. Ning” serving as the trip’s tour guide.
“My favorite thing about the trip was the people!” one trip participant told the paper. “Everybody really liked our guide, Mr. Ning. He was the kind of person who nobody could walk away from without being his friend.”
Walz “knew some Chinese officials who agreed to help set up the tour,” Omaha World-Herald reported in August 1993, with the Star-Herald later reporting that the trip had been “arranged by a friend of Walz in China’s foreign affairs department.”
The Omaha World-Herald reported Walz led his 1993 trip participants to Guangzhou’s Shamian Island.
The tiny, roughly 75-acre island is home to the headquarters of Guangdong CPAFFC, according to its archived website. Today, the Guangdong Foreign Affairs Office shares a website with Guangdong CPAFFC.
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 White Swan Hotel, a five star hotel, was an interesting place to visit,” one trip participant said, according to Alliance Times-Herald.
In 1994, Walz again helped lead a trip to China and took students to play sports at the “Guangzhou Institute,” the Chadron Record reported.
Walz also continued to bring students to China to meet with Ning Ziheng after he and his wife moved to Minnesota in 1996 to begin teaching at Mankato West High School, the DCNF found.
One undated photo posted by the “Mankato West High School Alumni For Walz” Facebook group shows Ning Ziheng and Walz with students in front of the Ruins of St. Paul’s in Macao, China.
Ning Ziheng also apparently visited Walz in Minnesota on April 4, 1998, according to a photo included in a May 2021 social media post by Chinese-language news outlet Today Macao. The photo appears to show Ning Ziheng beside Walz at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, playing miniature golf.
“Began golfing under a friend’s guidance,” the photo’s caption reads.
Ning Ziheng has since become a semi-professional golfer and has starred in short films about teaching golf to his sons, produced by the propaganda departments of the General Administration of Sport of China, All-China Sports Federation and the Chinese Olympic Committee.
An undated photo included in an April 2021 Today Macao social media post taken at an unspecified location pictures Walz with Ning Ziheng’s two sons.
Ning Ziheng now serves as a professor of Health Sciences and Sports at Macao Polytechnic University where Walz disclosed previously working as a fellow.
Ning did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“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.”
‘An End In Itself’
Walz’s relationship with CCP officials may cause him to overlook inappropriate ties between other U.S. lawmakers and CCP officials, says Steve Yates, senior research fellow for China and National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
“For decades many American leaders — whether from academia, business or government — argued that engagement with the CCP was a necessary means to the desirable end of reaching the Chinese people and achieving a better and safer future together,” Yates told the DCNF. “An elegant and tempting ideal.”
In the last three months, the House Oversight Committee has sent multiple letters to federal authorities concerning Walz’s close relationship with China and its political mechanisms. An August 2024 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requests information pertaining to matters such as “any warnings or advice the FBI may have given to Governor Walz about U.S. political figures being targeted by or recruited for CCP influence operations.”
More recently, Comer sent a subpoena to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, alleging that whistleblower disclosures notified “the Committee of serious concern among Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel regarding a longstanding connection between the CCP and Minnesota Governor Timothy James Walz.”
Walz was recently also forced to admit he’s made several false statements concerning his China travels, following a bombshell September 2024 report from Minnesota Public Radio.
Walz previously stated he’d traveled to China “about 30 times,” however, when pressed, a Walz spokesman told Minnesota Public Radio that the actual number of trips was “closer to 15.”
Minnesota Public Radio’s report also revealed that Walz was not in Hong Kong in May 1989 as the Tiananmen Square protests were intensifying as previously claimed. Rather, Walz was still in Nebraska at that time and didn’t travel to China until August 1989 to begin teaching at the No. 1 Middle School in Guangdong province’s city of Foshan, located directly southwest of Guangzhou.
Walz called himself a “knucklehead” and admitted he “misspoke” when a moderator asked him about the discrepancy during the CBS vice presidential debate.
Tim Walz on His China Trips: "I got there [China] that summer and misspoke on this." pic.twitter.com/03UIFK1F1Y
— DC Shorts (@theDCshorts) October 2, 2024
Walz has also attended several events organized by members of a CCP intel-tied nonprofit in recent years, and, while serving as governor, appointed a member of a political faction loyal to the CCP to a state board on Asian-American affairs, the DCNF reported.
“Over such a long period of time, responsible leaders would ask, who did you end up engaging and empowering and to what actual end?” Yates said. “Walz cannot afford to ask these questions, because for him, engagement with the CCP was an end in itself. He cannot point to where his counterparts are today and say they are making China or the U.S. a better or safer place courtesy of his decades of friendly engagement with the CCP.”
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Philip Lenczycki is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
