Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, appointed a man who belongs to a political party with ties to the Chinese Community Party to a state board, the Daily Caller reported.
Chang Wang, a Minnesota-based attorney, was appointed to the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans in May 2020. Wang serves as interim chair on the board, which advises the governor and other state agencies by promoting the "economic, social, legal and political equality of Asian Pacific Minnesotans," according to its website.
According to the Daily Caller, Wang is affiliated with the China Association for Promoting Democracy. The CAPD is "loyal" to the CCP and is allowed to operate in China because they promised to "rally closely around" the CCP's Central Committee, the Daily Caller reported.
"My elderly parents are my only ties to China," Wang told the Daily Caller by email, when asked about his relationship with CAPD.
Wang did not respond to an immediate email for comment placed by Newsmax.
The Minnesota governor's ties to China have come under scrutiny by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the chair of the House Oversight Committee.
Comer said he plans to investigate Walz's work related to China, which he has visited more than 30 times, where he spent his honeymoon, and to which he arranged trips for student to study abroad.
Walz first visited China in 1989 to teach English aboard, and while serving in Congress, he served as a fellow at the Macau Polytechnic University. Walz spoke alongside the president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
The Minnesota governor has also been critical of China, serving on a congressional committee investigating the country's human rights violations.
"Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights ... and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first. Republicans are twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda: praising dictators, and sending American jobs to China," Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for Walz, said in a statement to Politico.
A spokesman for the Harris-Walz campaign did not respond to an immediate email request for comment placed by Newsmax.
The CAPD describes itself as "a political party that accepts the leadership of the CCP and cooperates with the CCP as a participant in socialism with Chinese characteristics," according to its website.
An archived version of Wang's 2022 bio on the University of Minnesota's China Center website identified him as "one of the twenty-five members serving on the Central Civil and Judiciary Committee of China Association For Promoting Democracy, the third largest political party in mainland China," the Daily Caller reported.
His membership was removed from his bio sometime in 2023.