Walz's experience in China may not mean warmer ties: Analysts

As a young American in China in 1989, Mr Tim Walz - US Vice-President Kamala Harris' pick of running mate in the upcoming election - was one of the few foreigners living in the underdeveloped country at the time.

- Aw Cheng Wei China Correspondent

As part of a volunteer programme, Mr Walz, now 60, had spent that year teaching US history and English to high school students in southern Guangdong province.

Even after he returned to the United States, he visited China often for work. The education company that he and his wife set up would organise annual summer trips there.

Most notably, he even chose to spend part of his honeymoon in China after getting married on June 4, 1994 the fifth anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square protests.

His wife Gwen Walz told a US newspaper then that Mr Walz "wanted to have a date he will always remember".

Mr Walz's connections to China have been picked apart following Ms Harris' announcement of his candidacy on Aug 6, at a time when any connection to the world's second-largest economy can be weaponised against candidates in the upcoming presidential election in November.

Their Republican adversaries have taken aim at Mr Walz's extensive experience in China to raise voters' concerns that the two-term Minnesota governor will adopt a softer approach against America's greatest rival, if elected.

Mr Richard Grenell, former acting director of the US National Intelligence under then President Donald Trump in 2020 and a Republican party member, called Mr Walz "the pick of Communist China" on social media platform X.