The news regarding Kamala Harris’s selection of Tim Walz for her vice-presidential running mate reached China, leading to diverse reactions on social media networks on Wednesday. People seem to have varied views about whether Walz’s familiarity with China, owing to his experiences there, will prove advantageous for bilateral ties. Walz had spent a couple of years in Guangdong, a province in Southern China, teaching English in 1989 and 1990, and has since visited China almost thrice a dozen times.
However, he has never shied away from voicing his concerns about China’s track record on human rights and his impending nomination has been acknowledged by exiled advocates of democracy in Hong Kong. A number of comments on Weibo, a social media platform, proposed that Walz’s stint as a teacher in China may lead him to have a soft corner for the country, while others were sceptical.
A netizen from Hubei province pointed out that China has evolved since the time Walz was there, suggesting his experiences might not be all positive. On June 4th, 1989, Walz was in Hong Kong, when the Pro-Democracy student protests were brutally suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at Tiananmen Square. He was getting ready to teach at a Chinese high school under Harvard University’s WorldTeach initiative. Despite his past connections with China, his nomination received a mixed response in the country.
He later recalled his experiences during a congressional hearing on the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident. He remembered a bustling train station in Hong Kong and a large group of Europeans, who were livid about his decision to carry on even after the massacre. Yet, he believed that diplomacy needed to happen at various levels, also from people to people, and his placement in a Chinese high school during such a critical phase seemed highly significant to him.
In the succeeding months of the falling of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, Walz remembered engaging in conversations about these historic events with Chinese individuals. He observed the intrigue of the Chinese people, many of which had just survived the Cultural Revolution, worrying about the repercussions of upsetting the status quo on the societal structure. According to him, the mild societal reaction to these events was a point of interest that many should try to grasp.
Walz tied the knot with Gwen on the fifth commemoration of the catastrophic 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in 1994, and they led two high school tours around China for their honeymoon. The same year, they initiated a venture organising student expeditions to China, which they successfully ran for almost ten years.
Although Walz reported that he has journeyed to China nearly 30 times by the year 2016, and persistently pushed for engagement and dialogue with Beijing, he has also fervently fought for human rights in Hong Kong and Tibet. Following a trip to Tibet in 2016, he commended the economic advancements there but expressed criticism towards the constraints on religious liberty.
As a congressman, Walz backed numerous resolutions and actions highlighting China’s human rights violations, including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act 2017. Jeffrey Ngo, a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong who currently resides in Washington, expressed optimism about Walz’s selection as a vice-presidential candidate.
According to Ngo, when it concerns human rights and China, Walz could possibly be the strongest candidate on a major party ticket in recent memory, or even in history. He also described him as an effective and eloquent advocator of progressive principles and regulations in summation.