Fact Check: Was Tim Walz in China During Tiananmen Square Massacre?

Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s claims that he was in China at the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 has come under scrutiny after contemporaneous Nebraska newspaper articles were unearthed suggesting he was in the U.S. at the time.

Walz is set to face off against Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, in the CBS News vice presidential debate on Tuesday night.

The presidential race remains a toss-up, with Harris and Trump being separated by only a razor-thin margin in key battleground states five weeks out from Election Day.

New media reports drew scrutiny to Walz’s previous statements that he was in China at the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, when government authorities violently suppressed student protesters in central Beijing on June 4, 1989. It is estimated anywhere from several hundred to several thousand civilians were killed during those protests.

The Claim

Walz has said numerous times he was in Asia at the time of the protests, including in a 2014 statement commemorating the 25th anniversary of the event, at which point he was serving as a member of Congress.

“This year marks the 25th Anniversary of heroic events in Tiananmen Square. The courage of Chinese reformers during this monumental and heartbreaking day has been a beacon for the democratic spirit throughout the world. Living in Asia at the time, I was profoundly affected by these events and the Chinese people’s struggle for reform,” he wrote.

Walz also said during a Congressional hearing that same year that he was in Hong Kong at the time.

“As a young man, I was just going to teach high school in Foshan in Guangdong, and was in Hong Kong in May of ’89. And as the events were unfolding, several of us went in. And I still remember the train station in Hong Kong,” he said a decade ago.

He also provided similar testimony in 2009, according to a transcript first reported by the Associated Press.

In 2019, he said he “was in Hong Kong on June 4, 1989” during an interview with The Chad Hartman Show, and was “in China after that.”

The Facts

Walz spent a year teaching high school in China as part of Harvard University’s WorldTeach program after he graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska in 1989. He has also traveled to China multiple times since.

However, according to a new report from Minnesota Public Radio, Walz did not leave for Asia until August 1989, two months after the protests in Tiananmen, though the political situation in China remained turbulent for that entire period.

“A photograph published May 16, 1989, showed Walz working in the National Guard Armory in Alliance. And a story published in another Nebraska paper on August 11 that year said he would ‘leave Sunday en route to China’ after having ‘about given up participating [in WorldTeach] earlier this summer during the student revolts in parts of China,'” the radio station reported.

It cited a photograph from the Alliance Times-Herald and articles form The Star-Herald and The Chadron Record. The articles were published in April of that year.

The Star-Herald reported at the time that Walz planned “to leave in early August and spend at least a year in the nation.”

Newsweek reached out to the Harris campaign for comment via email.

CNN reported that the campaign was “unable to provide evidence to substantiate Walz’s claim” when asked about the report. The campaign has not provided specific dates about when he was in China throughout 1989, and it remained unclear exactly where he was on June 4, 1989.

The Ruling

False.

Reports from 1989 suggest Walz was still in Nebraska until August 1989. While it is technically possible that Walz could have left before he expected to, no evidence has been presented to support that he was in China on June 4, and there has been information to corroborate that he was still in the U.S. on or around the time of the Tiananmen protests.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK