Tim Walz has a decades-long connection with China 

Tim Walz has a decades-long connection with China, dating back to the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. 

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee taught at a high school in the country and later served on a United States congressional committee, focussing on American-Sino relations.

As an educator, Kamala Harris’ running mate taught American History, culture, and English to Chinese students at the Foshan No.1 High School in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in 1989.

That was the year that saw hundreds of thousands of Chinese students protesting against the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Tiananmen Square.

“China was coming, and that’s the reason that I went,” Walz said in a 2007 interview with The Hill, a Washington-based news website. During his one-year teaching stint there, he was nicknamed “Fields of China” by his students due to his kindness. 

Summer trips

His time in China also gave him a perspective on the lives of Chinese people under the rule of the Communist Party. In an interview with the Star Herald in 1990, he described teaching in China as “one of the best things” he has ever done, adding:

If they had the proper leadership, there would be no limits on what they could accomplish.

His interest in the country didn’t stop there. 

Upon returning to the United States, Walz and his wife set up a company named “Educational Travel Adventures” to coordinate summer trips to China for American high school students.

Five years after the Tiananmen Square protests and Beijing’s violent crackdown, he returned to the country with his wife for their honeymoon and they brought along two American high school tour groups. 

Walz continued running the summer exchange program until 2003. After becoming a member of the US Congress in 2007, he continued to focus on issues related to China. 

He served on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which focuses exclusively on human rights issues in the country.

Walz quickly established himself as a vocal critic of the Communist Party government, holding regular meetings with high-profile activists from China and Hong Kong.

Security concerns

They included prominent Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong and Tibet’s spiritual leader Dalai Lama. In a 2014 interview with Voice of America, Walz recounted his impression of witnessing the student-led protest in Tiananmen Square unfold:

I remember waking up and seeing the news on June Fourth that the unthinkable had happened.

While most Americans at the time decided to leave China due to security concerns following the 1989 protests, Walz said he felt it was “more important than ever to go” there because he wanted to ensure that “the story was told.” 

He also wanted to let the Chinese people know that the outside world was with them.

In addition to engaging with activists from China and Hong Kong, he also co-sponsored several resolutions on key human rights issues in the country. 

They included demanding the release of Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo and Chinese activist Huang Qi, as well as co-signing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in 2017.

In one of his congressional remarks in 2016, Walz highlighted the importance of having “constructive dialogues” with Beijing to ensure “the preservation of traditional Tibetan culture and Tibet’s fragile ecology.” At the time, he said:

The US was founded on the idea of universal freedom, and I believe that we must continue to urge the Chinese government to provide less regulated religious freedom to the Tibetans.

Military spending

In addition to being a vocal critique of China’s human rights record, Walz also expressed concerns about Beijing’s attempt to expand its presence in the South China Sea in 2016.

He cited efforts to build artificial islands in the disputed water as the reason to oppose Washington’s attempt to reduce military spending.

Despite his strong stance on China’s human rights record and military posture, Walz still stressed the importance of maintaining cooperation with the country. In a video interview with Agri-Pulse Communications, he said:

I don’t fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship. “I think we need to stand firm on what they are doing in the South China Sea, but there [are] many areas of cooperation that we can work on.

Analysts believe that Walz’s deep connections to the country and track record in US-China diplomacy could potentially help the Democratic presidential pair make more informed decisions on foreign policy, especially on Beijing-related issues.

Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University, told VOA:

I think [his emergence as Democratic vice-presidential nominee] is going to put a lot of people who care a lot about American foreign policy in this part of the world at ease, knowing that there is someone on the ticket who is informed.

“[He] has spent time in the region, and is not starting from square one when it comes to learning about American foreign policy in East Asia,” Nachman added.

Policy debate

Walz has expressed many humanistic views of the Chinese people, Tibetan people, and Hong Kongers, Nachman pointed out and said the Minnesota governor could add more nuance to the policy debate related to China in the United States:

He may be able to articulate the need to push back against China’s authoritarianism and human rights violations in different parts of the world in a way that doesn’t vilify Chinese citizens.

“Or, doesn’t lean antagonistically in scare tactic rhetoric that I think a lot of US-China discourse has turned into,” Nachman told VOA by phone.

William Yang is a correspondent for Voice of America based in Taiwan.

This edited article is republished courtesy of Voice of America. Read the original article here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.