Tim Walz’s Long Relationship With China Defies Easy Stereotypes
蒂姆·沃尔兹 (Tim Walz) 与中国的长期关系打破了简单的刻板印象

In the summer of 1989, Tim Walz faced a difficult choice.
1989 年夏天，蒂姆·沃尔兹面临着一个艰难的选择。

A newly minted college graduate from small-town Nebraska, he had just turned down a stable, 9-to-5 job offer and moved across the world to teach at a local high school in China. He had made it as far as Hong Kong, just across the Chinese border, when People’s Liberation Army tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to crush pro-democracy protests.
作为一名来自内布拉斯加州小镇的新大学毕业生，他刚刚拒绝了一份稳定的、朝九晚五的工作机会，并搬到了世界各地，在中国当地的一所高中任教。当他越过中国边境到达香港时，中国人民解放军的坦克开进天安门广场镇压民主抗议活动。

Rumors were flying about a possible civil war in China. Many foreigners, including most American teachers, had fled the country. Should he go back home or continue his journey into China?
关于中国可能爆发内战的谣言四起。许多外国人，包括大多数美国教师，都逃离了这个国家。他应该回家还是继续他的中国之旅？

He decided to go in.
他决定进去。

“It was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels, certainly people to people,” Mr. Walz recalled in 2014 during a congressional hearing marking the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. “The opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that critical time seemed to me to be really important.”
“我当时相信，外交将在多个层面上进行，尤其是人与人之间，”沃尔兹在 2014 年纪念天安门广场镇压 25 周年的国会听证会上回忆道。 “在那个关键时刻进入中国高中的机会对我来说似乎非常重要。”

The one year that Mr. Walz spent teaching English in southern China was the start of what would become a decades-long relationship with the country. As high school teachers in Nebraska and Minnesota, Mr. Walz and his wife, Gwen, regularly led trips to China in the 1990s and early 2000s to introduce students to China’s history and culture. Mr. Walz has said that he has traveled to China some 30 times, including for his honeymoon.
沃尔兹先生在中国南方教英语的一年是他与中国长达数十年关系的开始。作为内布拉斯加州和明尼苏达州的高中教师，沃尔兹先生和他的妻子格温在 20 世纪 90 年代和 2000 年代初定期带领学生前往中国，向学生介绍中国的历史和文化。沃尔兹先生表示，他已经去过中国大约 30 次，其中包括度蜜月。

That deep history of engagement with China reflects a lesser-known international dimension of the Democratic vice-presidential candidate. If elected vice president, Mr. Walz would bring to the White House unusually extensive personal experience in China — a history that supporters say could be an asset at a time of volatile relations between Washington and Beijing.
与中国接触的深厚历史反映了这位民主党副总统候选人鲜为人知的国际层面。如果当选副总统，沃尔兹将为白宫带来异常丰富的中国个人经历——支持者称，在华盛顿和北京关系不稳定之际，这段历史可能是一笔财富。

But the campaign has so far made little mention of Mr. Walz’s experience there, even as it has leaned into depictions of the Minnesota governor as an avuncular Midwestern dad, coach and teacher. And it has yet to lay out how Vice President Kamala Harris or Mr. Walz would handle China, which both the Biden and Trump administrations have treated with toughness.
但到目前为止，竞选活动很少提及沃尔兹在那里的经历，尽管它倾向于将这位明尼苏达州州长描述为一位慈祥的中西部父亲、教练和老师。它还没有阐明副总统卡马拉·哈里斯或沃尔兹先生将如何处理中国问题，拜登和特朗普政府都以强硬态度对待中国。

Republicans, by contrast, have already begun to seize on the governor’s personal experience in China to accuse him of being soft on a country that is now seen as America’s greatest military and economic rival.
相比之下，共和党人已经开始利用州长在中国的个人经历来指责他对这个现在被视为美国最大军事和经济竞争对手的国家态度软弱。

Richard Grenell, who served as ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, said on X that “Communist China” was “very happy” with Ms. Harris’s choice of Mr. Walz as her running mate. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said that Mr. Walz owed “the American people an explanation about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China.”
曾担任特朗普政府驻德国大使和代理国家情报总监的理查德·格伦内尔 (Richard Grenell)在 X 上表示，“共产主义中国”对哈里斯选择沃尔兹作为竞选伙伴“非常高兴”。阿肯色州参议员汤姆·科顿 (Tom Cotton)表示，沃尔兹“欠美国人民一个解释，他与共产主义中国长达 35 年的不寻常关系”。

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A spokesman for Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz’s campaign accused Republicans of “twisting basic facts” and “desperately lying” to distract from former President Donald J. Trump’s agenda.
哈里斯女士和沃尔兹先生竞选团队的发言人指责共和党人“歪曲基本事实”并“拼命撒谎”，以分散对前总统唐纳德·J·特朗普议程的注意力。

“Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first,” said James Singer, the spokesman, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will ensure we win the competition with China, and will always stand up for our values and interests in the face of China’s threats.”
“在他的整个职业生涯中，沃尔兹州长一直与中共对抗，为人权和民主而奋斗，并始终把美国的就业和制造业放在第一位，”发言人詹姆斯·辛格(James Singer)在谈到中国​​共产党时说。 “哈里斯副总统和沃尔兹州长将确保我们赢得与中国的竞争，并在面对中国的威胁时始终捍卫我们的价值观和利益。”

Mr. Walz’s record in the House, from 2007 to 2019, showed a lawmaker who often drew on his personal experience in the country to lay out sharp critiques of China’s human rights record. He took a special interest in Tibet and Hong Kong, meeting with both the Dalai Lama and Joshua Wong, a prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist.
沃尔兹从 2007 年到 2019 年在众议院的记录显示，这位议员经常利用自己在该国的个人经历对中国的人权记录提出尖锐批评。他对西藏和香港特别感兴趣，并会见了达赖喇嘛和香港著名民主活动人士黄之锋。

An adventure

Years before Mr. Walz became an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, he was a wide-eyed college graduate eager to learn more about the world beyond the farms and ranches of Nebraska.
在沃尔兹先生成为中国政府直言不讳的批评者的几年前，他是一位睁大眼睛的大学毕业生，渴望更多地了解内布拉斯加州农场和牧场以外的世界。

Mr. Walz was 25 when he arrived at Foshan No. 1 High School in southern China, near Hong Kong, as part of the WorldTeach program, a nonprofit affiliated with Harvard University. The school is in one of Foshan’s oldest neighborhoods, where thick banyan trees dangle aerial roots over sidewalks and streets.
沃尔兹先生 25 岁时，作为哈佛大学附属非营利组织 WorldTeach 项目的一部分，来到位于中国南部、靠近香港的佛山市第一中学。学校位于佛山最古老的街区之一，那里茂密的榕树在人行道和街道上悬垂着气生根。

Mr. Walz soon settled into the cocoon of daily life on a small-town campus, even as the chaos of the Tiananmen Square crackdown more than 1,100 miles away rippled across the country. He taught four English and U.S. history classes a day with about 65 students in each class. As one of the first American teachers at the school, he was afforded small luxuries like an air-conditioner and a monthly salary of around $80 — double what the local teachers earned.
沃尔兹很快就融入了小镇校园的日常生活，尽管 1,100 多英里外天安门广场镇压的混乱波及全国。他每天教授四节英语和美国历史课，每节课大约有 65 名学生。作为学校第一批美国教师之一，他获得了空调等小件奢侈品，月薪约为 80 美元——是当地教师收入的两倍。

Students loved their “big-nosed” teacher, giving him the nickname “Fields of China” because his kindness, they explained to him, was so expansive. For Christmas, some of his students and friends cut down a pine tree, decorated it and brought it to his room.
学生们很喜欢他们的“大鼻子”老师，给他起了“中国田野”的绰号，因为他们向他解释说，他的善良是如此广泛。圣诞节时，他的一些学生和朋友砍了一棵松树，装饰它，然后把它带到他的房间。

“No matter how long I live, I’ll never be treated that well again,” Mr. Walz told the Star-Herald in Scottsbluff, Neb., in 1990.
“无论我活多久，我都不会再受到那么好的对待了，”1990 年，沃尔兹先生在内布拉斯加州斯科茨布拉夫对《明星先驱报》说道。

He also took a train up to Beijing and visited Tiananmen Square, where soldiers had fatally shot hundreds, maybe thousands, of protesters and bystanders not long before.
他还乘火车前往北京，参观了天安门广场，不久前，士兵们枪杀了数百甚至数千名抗议者和旁观者。

Upon his return to Nebraska in 1990, he told the Star-Herald that going to China was “one of the best things” he had ever done. But he said he also felt that the Chinese people had been mistreated and cheated by their government for years.
1990年返回内布拉斯加州后，他告诉《明星先驱报》，去中国是他做过的“最好的事情之一”。但他表示，他也感到中国人民多年来一直受到政府的虐待和欺骗。

“If they had the proper leadership, there are no limits on what they could accomplish,” Mr. Walz said at the time. “They are such kind, generous, capable people.”
“如果他们有适当的领导，他们可以取得的成就是没有限制的，”沃尔兹先生当时说。 “他们是非常善良、慷慨、有能力的人。”

Returning again and again
一次又一次的回归

By 1994, Mr. Walz had taken a job teaching social studies at Alliance High School in western Nebraska. There, he met and fell in love with a fellow teacher, Gwen Whipple. They married on June 4 — which happened to be the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He later would say, “There was no doubt I would remember that date.”
1994 年，沃尔兹先生在内布拉斯加州西部的联盟高中找到了一份教授社会研究的工作。在那里，他遇见并爱上了一位老师格温·惠普尔（Gwen Whipple）。他们于 6 月 4 日结婚——这一天恰好是天安门广场镇压的周年纪念日。他后来说：“毫无疑问我会记住那个日期。”

Shortly after, they left for a trip that effectively became their honeymoon: a field trip to China with 60 students.

Mr. Walz was determined to share with his students the marvel of discovering the wider world beyond small-town America, according to interviews with four former students and a professor who went on the yearly trips that the Walzes had organized in the 1990s.

The students, most of whom had never traveled abroad, barely spent any time in the classroom. In addition to sightseeing, they met with tai chi masters, practiced their chopstick skills at family-style meals and tried Chinese calligraphy.

On the trip in 1993, Mr. Walz brought the group to meet his former students at Foshan No. 1 High School. One of Mr. Walz’s friends guided them throughout the two-week trip and was so beloved that one of the students, Kyle Lierk, recalled crying when they had to say goodbye.

“It was clear that Tim was able to build the trip around humanity,” recalled Mr. Lierk, now 47.

Shay Armstrong, a former student who went in 1993 and 1994, recalled learning about some of the more disturbing aspects of Chinese Communist Party rule. They were told about the harsh “one-child” policy, under which most couples who had more than one child were forced to pay fines.

While visiting Tiananmen Square, Mr. Walz explained the history of the bloody crackdown and the brutal governance of Mao Zedong, China’s former chairman, she said.

“It wasn’t all bubbles, hearts and rainbows,” recalled Ms. Armstrong, now 46.

The Walzes continued leading the student trips to China even after they moved in 1996 to Mankato, Minn., organizing the visits through a company that they had established called Educational Travel Adventures.

A vocal critic of China

As a congressman, Mr. Walz did not shy away from talking about his experience in China.

But he was also critical of the Chinese government from the start. And over his 12-year tenure in the House, Mr. Walz’s criticisms of China’s human rights record became even sharper, especially as the Chinese government took a more authoritarian turn under Xi Jinping.

Mr. Walz served on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bipartisan group of lawmakers focused on monitoring and reporting on human rights and the rule of law in China. Transcripts show that other commission members often praised Mr. Walz for his expertise.

“You are a great asset to our commission,” Representative Chris Smith, Republican from New Jersey and then-chairman of the commission, said to Mr. Walz during a 2011 hearing.

Mr. Walz cosponsored a resolution demanding the release of Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident and Nobel laureate. He criticized China’s unfair trade practices and crackdown on rights lawyers and religious groups.

In 2015, Mr. Walz participated in a rare American delegation to Tibet led by Nancy Pelosi, then the House minority leader. The next year, he met with the Dalai Lama in what he later described in a social media post as a “life-changing” lunch.

Jeffrey Ngo, a prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, credited Mr. Walz with being at one point the only House Democrat willing to continue backing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which would compel the U.S. government to impose sanctions on officials responsible for human rights abuses in Hong Kong.

Mr. Ngo said Mr. Walz’s support helped keep the bill alive at a crucial time until it was eventually passed.

“Walz is perhaps the most solid candidate when it comes to human rights and China on a major-party ticket in recent memory, if not ever,” Mr. Ngo said.

Toward the end of his tenure in Congress, Mr. Walz continued to stress the importance of identifying areas of cooperation with China. But he also began to question the long-held wisdom that opening up trade with China would lead the country to become more open and democratic.

“I certainly was under the illusion that liberalizing trade and openness would have a significant impact on liberalization of personal freedoms,” Mr. Walz said during a congressional hearing in 2016. “I have now seen that is not the case.”

In the decades since Mr. Walz arrived at Foshan, the high school that launched his lifelong interest in China has expanded considerably.

On a visit to the high school on Wednesday, news of Mr. Walz’s ascent to the Democratic ticket drew vastly different reactions.

As students in blue and white uniforms exited the school’s gates, they said that their school’s connection to a suddenly prominent American politician had been the talk of classrooms and online chat rooms.

Meanwhile, a school dean said that the school had no comment on Mr. Walz. And guards at the school gate prevented journalists from entering the grounds to see the campus museum.

Dionne Searcey, Amy Chang Chien, Li You and Alain Delaquérière contributed reporting and research.