Tim Walzs Chinese lover went on a two-day Communist-led propaganda march aimed at quelling popular unrest after the Tiananmen Square massacre – and shortly before she started her fling with the vice-presidential hopeful.
Jenna Wang – whose father was a high-ranking local Communist leader – felt she should go on what she dubbed the Little Long March to commemorate those who had died in one of the partys seminal events.
We walked for two days and a night to commemorate the Long March and the martyrs of the revolution, Wang, now 59, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
As DailyMail.com exclusively revealed on Monday, Wang and Walz had a torrid secret romance while he was teaching in China in 1989.
The march was meant to honor the Long March of 1934 The huge yellow and red flag bore the words ‘Walk the Red Army Long March Road’
Jenna Wang – whose father was a high-ranking local Communist leader -–went on a two-day Communist-led propaganda march aimed at quelling popular unrest after the Tiananmen Square massacre
They had to keep their relationship from her father, Bin Hui, out of fear he would disown her for fraternizing with a foreigner.
She said she believed Walz planned to marry her, but they parted when he accused her of only wanting him as a way to move to the United States.
Wang insists she was never a member of the Communist Party herself.
But DailyMail.com can reveal that she joined young party members and flag-waving villagers in the late summer of 1989 for a patriotic parade in the mountainous region of Longsheng, where she grew up.
It was one of numerous countrywide propaganda events organized by the CCP to quell public unease after the Tiananmen killings in June of that year which ended a weeks-long student protest in the square.
The Chinese government says 241 people were killed in what it labelled the ‘June Fourth Incident’. Other estimates put the figure at around 2,700.
Wang’s march commemorated the Long March of 1934 when Mao Zedong led a military retreat by Communist forces as Nationalist forces advanced.
Mao and 65,000 men started off on a 5,600-mile march through western China. Conditions were so bad only some 8,000 survived.
But with the onset of war with Japan in 1937 the two sides consolidated and the Red Army fought a disciplined guerilla war against the Japanese that pushed Mao to eventually assume power.
Wang insisted she was never a member of the Communist Party herself
Walz arrived in Wangs hometown of Foshan, in Guangdong Province during August 1989 – just two months after the Tiananmen protests were put down
‘I was never in the Communist party myself but these stories were part of growing up in every household in China, Wang told DailyMail.com.
‘We all felt the efforts of those who had given up their lives and endured so much for the Motherland should not be forgotten,’ said Wang, explaining why she went on the 1989 commemoration under a huge yellow and red flag bearing the words ‘Walk the Red Army Long March Road’.
Walz, now the 60-year-old Governor of Minnesota and the Democratic nominee for Vice President under Kamala Harriss presidential campaign, arrived in Wangs hometown of Foshan, in Guangdong Province during August 1989 – just two months after the Tiananmen protests were put down.
He was 25 when he met Wang some months later. She attended one of his lectures and he slipped her headphones aside and whispered into her ear: You are very beautiful.
Their romance blossomed behind closed doors as they sipped tea, made love and listened to George Michael hits.
Wang had a friend on the same teaching staff as Walz, so she was able to gain access to the exclusive school where she could visit him in his one-bed staff digs, she said.
Over the weeks that followed the lovebirds grew closer, walking in the park and going to dances in the evening where there was less chance of being spotted by communist snoops
Tim was very passionate and very romantic. I can still remember dancing with him to our favorite song, Careless Whisper, she told DailyMail.com.
Wang was worried her father Bin Hui would disown her if he discovered she was fraternizing with a foreigner
Walz is now the 60-year-old Governor of Minnesota and the Democratic nominee for Vice President under Kamala Harris presidential campaign
The fact we couldnt touch or kiss in public just made it all the more exciting and intense when we were finally alone.
The closer the couple became, the more the then 24-year-old Wang began to dream about marriage and a new life in the United States.
We were deeply in love and I wanted to marry him and start a family. When it didnt happen, I felt very unhappy and sad. Tims behavior was very selfish, she told DailyMail.com.
Tim was very handsome. I loved his eyes and his big mouth. We talked afterwards and he was very complimentary about my English.
My colleagues couldnt speak whole sentences but Tim told me that if he closed his eyes and listened it was like being back in America.
They avoided overt public shows of affection in case it got back to Wangs father Bin Hui, who was an important CCP official and the chairman of a labor union in her native city of Guilin.
Walz would travel to Hong Kong and Macau on the weekends – cities that were more or less inaccessible for all but the Chinese elite – and bring back Western-style luxuries like blue jeans, Ray-Ban sunglasses and jewelry.
During the summer, Walz returned to the US but wrote letters to Wang and sent her a picture on the back of which he wrote the single word Me!
He is pictured above in China when he returned with his now-wife Gwen in a photo taken by a mutual friend of Wang
He couldnt sing and when he tried to dance he found it very hard. I could tell he was in the military, Wang said.
But we talked for hours and hours, we stayed in bed, we had sex. He continued to buy me gifts.
I could never stay overnight because of the social conventions. It was very repressive. Couples walked around the city like robots.
My father would have been very, very angry and sad if he had found out.
During the summer, Walz returned to the US but wrote letters to Wang, giving vivid depictions of his life and teaching job in Alliance, Nebraska.
At Walzs direction, Wang says she sent off a passport photo and information about herself to an address in the States – believing it was part of the process to secure her a visa.
When he flew back to China in 1992, she resigned her coveted teaching role, believing she was about to embark on a new life.
Their relationship soon began to sour, however, when Walz made clumsy, romantic gestures in public – on one occasion trying to feed Wang a slice of pear as they embarked on a ten-day tour of South China.
People were staring at us. I tried to reject it because I was very afraid. Teachers were supposed to set an example, she said.
The Tiananmen Square massacre in which tousands were killed was the catalyst for the Little long March that Wang went on
Wang and Walzs relationship began to sour when he openly displayed affection with her – which was eye-raising in China
Walz and Wang never crossed paths again. He married Gwen Whipple, also a teacher, in 1994 but would reconnect with Wang over Facebook in 2009 and sent a few messages back and forth
The couple made sure to book two hotel rooms wherever they stayed, but on an overnight train journey, Walz insisted that Wang sleep in his cabin.
The conductor shone a flashlight on Wang in the middle of the night and started to admonish her, only to retreat when Walz, afforded more respect as a westerner, woke up.
When the pair reached Hainan Island, known for its tropical climate and beach resorts, Wang was ready to confront him about their future plans.
Walz responded by suggesting that Wang was more interested in a US passport than marriage.
This was very offensive. I said to him that it is both or nothing, she said.
I wasnt giving up my life and my position to move to Nebraska, a cold place in the middle of nowhere that most Chinese people had never heard of.
I was giving it up to be with Tim, to get married and start a family.
Knowing now that he wasnt going to marry me made me feel cheap and common, as if I was being treated like a prostitute.
The next morning Wang slipped out of their hotel and took a taxi to a remote clifftop where she says she contemplated throwing herself off rather than returning to her old life in disgrace.
But on the bus back to Foshan, she resolved to leave Walz and instead headed to Guilin to help her mother recover from a recent stomach surgery.
Walz speaks at a campaign event on September 12 in Michigan
He told Wang that he wasnt going to marry her because he felt she only wanted the visa which caused their relationship to come to an abrupt end due to her feeling cheap and common
The bus stopped but I didnt get off. He said, please come and lets talk, lets give this a chance, Wang recalled.
But I said no, I felt dead inside. I wasnt going to force a person to love me. I never saw Tim again.
From 1993 onward, Walz began leading annual summer trips to China for students in the Nebraska and Minnesota high schools where he taught.
He married Gwen Whipple, also a teacher, in 1994.
Walz never again crossed paths with Wang, who emigrated to Europe several years later where she now works as teacher, translator and cultural mediator.
She says the pair last exchanged a handful of friendly messages over Facebook in 2009 and talked about how their lives had panned out.
The mother-of-one says she is coming forward now because she feels Walz behaved selfishly towards her and put her reputation and career at risk with his fickle behavior.
A spokesperson for the Harris-Walz 2024 campaign did not respond to a request for comment.