‘Always remember’: how Tim Walz’s time in China shaped him

Kamala Harris' vice-presidential pick taught in the country and has a history of supporting human rights in places considered sensitive by Beijing

In November 2016, the Democrats were in disarray. Donald Trump had just been declared the winner of the US presidential election, and congresspeople and staffers alike were panicking about the future of American democracy - and their own jobs. It was a tricky time to organise an event about Hong Kong, a Chinese city that few people in the Capitol had given much thought to since the Umbrella Movement of 2014.

For a while, it seemed that no one from Congress would turn up to meet Joshua Wong, the bespectacled - and now imprisoned - student leader who was flying to Washington for a briefing organised by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), a government agency.