1. I’m encouraged by @KamalaHarris’s selection of @Tim_Walz as her running mate. While his record as an educator, a National Guard officer, and Minnesota’s governor is acclaimed, I want to reflect on how I met this amazing guy: his dedication to human rights and #China.
2. In the spring of 1989, fresh out of college, Walz volunteered to teach English in Foshan for a year. It was an idealistic time to be abroad. Cracks were beginning to appear in Eastern European communist regimes. Chinese students and workers rose up to demand political change.
3. He found himself at that critical moment in #HongKong, where major solidarity protests also broke out. Decades later — at a hearing on the Tiananmen Square massacre that eventually ended it all — he’d still recall the gravity of boarding the train to Guangzhou from Hung Hom. 
4. His takeaway from the transformative experience was that although governments failed, personal exchange mattered: to get acquainted with ordinary folks, to listen to their stories, to build lasting friendships, to promote liberal democracy.
5. He was elected to the House in 2006, representing a rural district bordering Iowa for six terms. He served on @CECCgov and established himself as a prominent critic of the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian rule, particularly on poor labor and environmental standards.
6. Amid the Umbrella Movement in the fall of 2014, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Congressmen Frank Wolf and Chris Smith to author the original version of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Walz signed on as an early co-sponsor.
7. @joshuawongcf and I visited Capitol Hill right after the 2016 presidential election. Despite the lame-duck period, Walz hosted us for an event to brief staffers and reporters. The impassioned speech he delivered (entirely without notes!) attested to his expertise in Hong Kong.
https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/798287014110105601
8. Walz didn’t fail to follow up. He kept our plight near and dear to his heart because of this personal relationship we built, speaking out from afar when Joshua was unjustly imprisoned for the first time the following year.
https://twitter.com/reptimwalz/status/899785957532106754
9. Moreover, his position evolved alongside Hong Kongers. He once believed in the merits of strategic engagement and Hong Kong’s potential as a stepping stone to make Greater China free. But he grew receptive to our call for the right of self-determination before long.
https://twitter.com/reptimwalz/status/899786829536284674
10. We knocked on every door when the #HKHRDA lacked momentum. Only Walz answered his: At its absolute lowest point in 2017–18, he was the sole House Democrat willing to keep co-sponsoring the bill — seemingly a fruitless endeavor — with Smith.
11. He won the gubernatorial election back home in 2018. I never got to thank him after the #HKHRDA finally passed in 2019 against the backdrop of mass protests in Hong Kong, as he was now in St. Paul. But I knew it couldn’t have been done without the groundwork he’d laid.
12. His enduring support for #Tibet was likewise impressive. One time, he brought high-school students from a small town of some 2,000 inhabitants in rural Minnesota to meet the sikyong of the Tibetan government in exile at his office!
https://twitter.com/reptimwalz/status/697923194989125632
13. And how many people in Congress — let alone a busy ranking member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee — would so diligently be tracking political prisoners in Tibet since the 2008 uprising?
https://twitter.com/reptimwalz/status/964221993473146880
14. 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. All in all, he’s also an effective, articulate, genuine champion of progressive values and policies.
15. As the 2024 campaign moves forward, I’m filled with enthusiasm and optimism that Harris can take advantage of Walz’s unique background. In fact, she should. I know he’ll make a fine vice president, and I look forward to enlisting their help to fight for Hong Kong’s cause.
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