Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has claimed he was in China during the infamous massacre at Tiananmen Square, but documents reportedly contradict his story.
The revelation is just the latest in a series of exaggerations and outright fabrications made by the Minnesota governor to inflate his political resume.
‘As the events were unfolding, several of us went in.’
The discrepancy was first reported by Minnesota Public Radio’s APM Reports that said the Walz campaign was unable to “produce documentation to back up Walz’s statement that he was there during the uprising.”
While Walz had frequently claimed that he was visiting China when the government violently crushed a pro-democracy uprising, local reports show that he was actually at home in Nebraska during the historical event.
One local news report placed Walz at a National Guard storeroom in the city of Alliance in May 1989. The reports said he didn’t leave for China until August, when the protests in China had already ended.
Media outlets like the New York Times, CBS News, and National Public Radio had repeated Walz’ story without scrutiny.
“As the events were unfolding, several of us went in. And I still remember the train station in Hong Kong,” said Walz at a congressional hearing in 2014. “There was a large number of, especially European, I think, very angry that we would still go after what had happened, but it was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels.”
The Walz campaign has already admitted to exaggerating the number of times he had visited China, which he claimed was 30 visits, but in actually was about half that number.
He also extolled the virtues of the communist system when he returned to the U.S. and taught at a high school after receiving favorable treatment that he compared to being treated “as a king.”
The communist regime in China was condemned for the military action against the protests, including the use of People’s Liberation Army tanks. As many as 10,000 people may have been killed, although some estimates place the number far lower.
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