Put simply, the Chinese communists aren’t running a holiday charity for American tourists. For those communists, nothing comes without a quid pro quo. It’s certain that Walz was vetted by the Ministry of State Security, the regime’s powerful secret police, because that’s how China works. No American would be allowed to run academic exchanges for a couple of decades, on the CCP’s dime, without MSS approval. It just wouldn’t happen.

While this doesn’t mean that Walz has a witting relationship with the MSS, what might it know about him after his 30 visits to the country? Three decades ago, a young American with an affection for China, who was also a part-time member of the U.S. military, would have been a tempting recruiting target for Chinese intelligence. Given that Beijing’s spies represent the greatest espionage threat to the United States today, this isn’t any merely academic query.