 "Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speak at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, on Tuesday. AP")
Democrat presidential nominee Kamal Harris’ VP pick Tim Walz has a decades old connection with China. While this link may offer valuable insights for Harris’s approach to the world’s second-largest economy, it may, at the same time, pose challenges with Beijing’s leaders and create tensions with Republicans at home.
According to a Bloomberg report, while the Minnesota governor has spoken affectionately about China’s people, his stance on China’s leaders, past meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader exiled by China, and other anti-China moves in the past may open him to criticism from Beijing.
On the other hand, some of the governor’s more nuanced takes on the country from his trips could leave him open to Republican attacks during a tight race for the White House at a time when the China relationship is much more confrontational, added the report.
In 1989 and 1990, Walz taught English in China’s southern Guangdong province. He was the first person on a presidential ticket to have that kind of experience living in the country since George HW Bush, who served as US ambassador in Beijing in the 1970s.
After returning from China in 1990, Walz told a local newspaper, “If they had the proper leadership, there are no limits on what they could accomplish.”
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In a dig at China, Walz, after getting married to Gwen on the fifth anniversary of the deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square military crackdown, told a local newspaper “he wanted to have a date he’ll always remember.”
He’s also posted on social media that he had a “life-changing” lunch with the Dalai Lama.
"#tbt to 2 years ago, a life-changing lunch with @DalaiLama. We talked about humility, patience, and compassion. I try to embody these values every day in my work,” he had posted in 2018.
His interest in the country has also extended to policy-making, with Walz cosponsoring numerous pieces of legislation in the US House, including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2017.
Jeffrey Ngo, a former youth activist from Hong Kong, told Bloomberg that Walz was the sole House Democrat to support the bill, having “knocked on every door” to rally support. Ngo, who met Walz in 2016 with fellow democracy advocate Joshua Wong, praised the congressman’s deep understanding of Hong Kong and China issues.
“This guy really knew his stuff,” Bloomberg quoted Ngo, now a research fellow at US-based advocacy group Hong Kong Democracy Council, as saying.
“He’s rare among members of congress because he’s actually been to China so many times,” he added.
Walz has also cosponsored several resolutions, including those condemning China’s censorship of the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989 and expressing concern over the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners.
As soon as Walz made his prominent debut on the national political stage on Tuesday, many on social media scrutinised his extensive history of comments on China, including some that date back decades.
“I don’t fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship,” Walz said in a video interview posted in 2016 that focused mainly on agriculture that is now being reposted on X.
“I totally disagree, and I think we need to stand firm, on what they’re doing in the South China Sea. But there’s many areas of cooperation that we can work on,” he added.
Simultaneously, his views on China have evolved from initial optimism that economic opening would lead to increased political freedoms to frustration over what he perceives as China’s deteriorating human rights record. His stance largely aligns with the Biden administration’s approach, which seeks to compete with Beijing in military and economic arenas while cooperating on issues like climate change and drug trafficking where possible, reported Bloomberg.
“I think the idea was, with a free market economy, we’d see a more opening of the Chinese grip on — on social life and on human rights," Bloomberg quoted Walz as saying in a congressional hearing in 2016. “That simply has not occurred,” he added.
According to Bloomberg, citing a Chinese official, Walz take on China is unlikely to impact US policy as American politicians are unified in their hardline views on China.
“In Beijing’s view, every candidate believes untrue and harmful things about China,” Bloomberg quoted the official as saying.
Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and author of Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance, told Bloomberg that while China seems to be a personal concern for Walz, this perspective is beneficial only up to a certain extent.
It doesn’t fully capture the “zero-sum competition” between the US and China, he added.
“The Chinese people aren’t Americans’ enemies, and Walz understands that basic reality — on the other hand, Walz seems overly optimistic, almost Pollyannish, about Washington’s struggle with the Chinese Communist Party,” Bloomberg quoted Sobolik as saying.
“Like President Biden and Vice President Harris, Walz seems to reject a cold war framing for US-China relations. That’s a bad thing,” he added.
“I lived in China, I’ve been there about 30 times,” Walz said back in 2016. “But if someone tells you they’re an expert on China they’re probably not telling you the truth, because it’s a complex country.”
With inputs from agencies