Tim Walz’s China tourism business shut down after he didn't pay a $26 tax bill, reveals new report

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA: Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is in hot water due to his involvement with a China tourism company that was dissolved by the state of Nebraska in 1998.

The dissolution happened after Walz failed to pay a mere $26 in business operating taxes, according to a report by the Washington Free Beacon.

Foundation and dissolution of Educational Travel Adventures, Inc

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz co-founded a for-profit venture named Educational Travel Adventures, Inc. in 1995 with his wife Gwen. It was designed to cater to student groups interested in traveling to communist China.

However, the company faced an early setback when the Nebraska Secretary of State dissolved it in April 1998 due to “non-payment of occupational taxes.”

Despite the company being dissolved, Walz continued to organize and lead student trips to China. The Washington Free Beacon reported that he facilitated at least two trips after the company's dissolution, one in 1998 and another in 2001.

In 2002, Walz took steps to revive his business by founding another entity with the same name in Minnesota. The new iteration of the company was showcased during his 2006 Congressional campaign. 

An archived press packet from the campaign describes the company as a "small business" through which Walz conducted "annual educational trips to China for high school students."

The packet also notes that Walz was part of "one of the first government-sanctioned groups of American educators to teach in Chinese high schools."

Despite this ambitious restart, Walz reportedly stopped leading these student trips in 2003. However, his involvement with Educational Travel Adventures didn't end there.

In 2008, a year after Walz took office as the representative of Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, he reinstated the company in Nebraska. This required him to pay $235 in back taxes and interest. Once the company was back in good standing, Walz promptly moved to dissolve it.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky) raised concerns about Walz’s travel company in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Comer demanded information regarding the Chinese entities and officials with whom Walz may have engaged or partnered through his company. He also inquired about any warnings or advice the FBI might have given Walz concerning potential Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence operations targeting US politicians.

One of the concerns raised by Comer was whether the CCP might have subsidized some of Educational Travel Adventures' trips to China.

Tim Walz's broader connection to China

Tim Walz's ties to China extend well beyond his travel company. He was also a visiting fellow and lectured on international relations at Macau Polytechnic University—a state-run institution in China—until at least 2007.

The university was established in 1981 and is closely aligned with China’s Belt and Road Initiative—a global infrastructure development strategy that has been central to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s efforts to expand China's influence worldwide.

According to Marcus Im Sio Kei, the rector of Macau Polytechnic University, the school’s mission is "in alignment with China’s Belt and Road Initiative." On the university’s website, Kei is quoted as saying, “We are committed to cultivate talented individuals to serve the country and Macau.” 

Walz's connection to China began long before he founded Educational Travel Adventures. Walz has made over 30 trips to China since the spring of 1989, the period of the Tiananmen Square massacre. 

His first trip to China was as a volunteer under the auspices of World Teach, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization that sends volunteers to teach in developing countries.

The organization was founded by former Harvard University students and has ties to Changsha Yuanjing Education Consulting Limited, a company affiliated with China’s Ministry of Public Security.

During his testimony before a Congressional panel on China in 2014, Walz recounted his experience in China in 1989. “As a young man I was just going to teach high school in Foshan in Guangdong province and was in Hong Kong in May 1989,” he said.

Walz reportedly taught American culture and English as a second language to about 1,000 high school and middle school students every week.

“As the events were unfolding, several of us went in,” he recalled. “I still remember the train station in Hong Kong. There was a large number of people — especially Europeans, I think — very angry that we would still go after what had happened.”

Rep Jim Banks (R-Ind) has requested that the Pentagon investigate whether Walz complied with foreign travel reporting requirements during his numerous trips to China. Some of these trips occurred while Walz was a senior-ranking member of the Minnesota National Guard.

It's worth noting that Walz married his wife on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The couple even spent their honeymoon in China. “He wanted a date he’ll always remember,” Gwen Walz told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald in 1994, the New York Post reported.