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Mixed reaction to Walz’s appointment in China despite his familiarity with the country

Kamala Harris’s running mate spent his honeymoon in China and has visited on more than 30 occasions

While Tim Walz has advocated dialogue and engagement with Beijing he has championed the cause of human rights in Tibet and Hong Kong. Photograph: Jenn Ackerman/New York Times
While Tim Walz has advocated dialogue and engagement with Beijing he has championed the cause of human rights in Tibet and Hong Kong. Photograph: Jenn Ackerman/New York Times
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Denis Staunton in Beijing
Wed Aug 07 2024 - 16:40

Kamala Harris’s choice of Tim Walz as her running mate was a trending topic on Chinese social media on Wednesday, with users divided over whether his familiarity with China would benefit bilateral relations. Walz taught English in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in 1989 and 1990, went to China on his honeymoon and has visited the country “about 30 times”.

But he has also been an outspoken critic of Beijing’s human rights record and his presumptive nomination received a welcome from Hong Kong democracy activists in exile. Some of those commenting on social media platform Weibo suggested that Walz’s time as a teacher in China would make him more sympathetic to the country but others had their doubts.

“The time that this candidate was in China was very different and the atmosphere was different at the time, so the impact on him might not be positive,” a user from Hubei province said.

The Minnesota governor was in Hong Kong on June 4th, 1989, when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) shot and killed pro-democracy student demonstrators on Tiananmen Square. He was preparing to cross the border to start teaching at a Chinese high school as part of Harvard University’s WorldTeach programme.

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“As the events were unfolding several of us went in. I still remember the train station in Hong Kong,” he told a congressional hearing on the 25th anniversary of the massacre in 2014. “There was a large number of people, especially Europeans I think, very angry that we would still go after what had happened. But it was my belief at that time that the diplomacy was going to happen on many levels, certainly people to people, and the opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that critical time seemed to me to be really important.”

Walz recalled that during the months that followed, as the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union began to disintegrate, he discussed the unfolding events with people in China. “It was interesting to watch many of those Chinese who so recently had come through the Cultural Revolution, express concerns about what would happen if you upset the fruit basket, if you will, type of thing. I think it’s important for many to understand here why maybe there wasn’t a broader societal response to what had happened,” he said.

Walz and his wife Gwen got married on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1994 and they spent their honeymoon in leading two high school groups on a tour of China. The same year they set up a business that organised student trips to China which they ran for almost a decade.

Walz said in 2016 that he had visited China “about 30 times” but while he has consistently advocated dialogue and engagement with Beijing, he has championed the cause of human rights in Tibet and Hong Kong. After a visit to Tibet in 2016 he praised the economic development there but criticised restrictions on religious freedom.

As a congressman Walz co-sponsored a number of resolutions and measures focused on China’s human rights record, including the 2017 Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Jeffrey Ngo, a Hong Kong democracy activist now based in Washington, said he was encouraged by his selection as vice-presidential candidate.

“Walz is perhaps the most solid candidate when it comes to human rights and China on a major party ticket in recent memory – if not ever,” he said on X. “All in all he’s also an effective, articulate, genuine champion of progressive values and policies.”