U.S. Democratic vice-presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday as presidential candidate Kamala Harris looks on
| Photo Credit: AFP

U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate has raised eyebrows, and plenty of questions, in China. Mr. Walz had spent considerable time in China, with his first visit being in 1989, the year the military crushed pro-democracy protests.

Demonstrators spent weeks on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square demanding democracy before the military conducted a deadly crackdown on June 4, 1989.

Also Read:Who is Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s pick for Vice-President?

Mr. Walz was married on the fifth anniversary of that politically sensitive date.

Discussion of the events at Tiananmen is strictly censored in China but many social media users made veiled references on Wednesday (August 7, 2024) to the timing of Mr. Walz’s stint in the country.

The 60-year-old former schoolteacher has visited China dozens of times, including on summer trips with student groups for sightseeing and cultural exchange.

In 1989, Mr. Walz moved to Foshan, a city in China’s southern Guangdong province, for a year of teaching English at a local high school, according to media reports at the time.

Mr. Walz married his wife Gwen on June 4, 1994, an article in a local U.S. newspaper said.

“He wanted to have a date he’ll always remember,” his wife was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, social media users in China questioned the timing of Mr. Walz’s 1989 arrival in the country and suggested ulterior motives.

‘Special mission’

“He came to China at a time of turmoil, clearly with a special mission,” one user commented on the platform Weibo.

“Is he from the CIA?” another wrote.

“Look at the year and you cannot help but be sceptical,” chimed in a third.

Mr. Walz has pushed back against the assertion that the United States and China are necessary adversaries, a view widespread in Washington in recent years as trade and geopolitical disagreements with Beijing mount.

“I lived in China and as I said I have been there about 30 times,” he told farming news website Agri-Pulse in a 2016 interview.

“But if someone tells you they are an expert on China, they are probably not telling you the truth because it is a complex country,” he said.

But despite his positive comments on Chinese people and culture, Mr. Walz has also been critical of its government, telling local U.S. media in 1990 that with “proper leadership” the country could achieve great success.

In 2016, while representing Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives, he met with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader denounced by Beijing as a dangerous separatist.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it would not comment on Ms. Harris’s choice of Mr. Walz as a running mate, calling the election an internal affair of the United States.

“We hope the U.S. side can work with the Chinese side to move in the same direction,” the statement said.

Social media users wondered what Mr. Walz’s personal connection to their country might mean if elected. “If Harris is elected President, Vice President Walz will have a definite influence on her China policy,” one user wrote.

The U.S. is trying to build an Asia-Pacific version of NATO through its Indo-Pacific strategy to maintain its hegemony in the region, a Chinese defence official has said, stressing that Washington’s attempt to serve its “selfish” geopolitical interest is “doomed to fail”.

The remarks by Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng, deputy chief of staff of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, came in response to U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin’s speech during the Shangri La Dialogue on Saturday in which he spoke about strengthening alliances and partnerships across the region.

Held annually in Singapore, the Shangri La Dialogue is Asia’s premier defence summit.   Lieutenant-General Jing warned that if regional countries were to sign up for the U.S.’ Indo-Pacific strategy, they would be bound to the “U.S. war chariot” and be lured into “taking bullets for the U.S”.

He termed Mr. Austin’s remarks as “rhetoric” that “sounds good but does no good, one that serves “selfish U.S. geopolitical interests” and which is “doomed to fail”.

“The real purpose is to merge the small circle into the large circle of the Asia-Pacific version of NATO so as to maintain the hegemony led by the U.S.,” Mr. Jing, a member of the Chinese delegation, said on Saturday.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states — 30 European and 2 North American.

The Indo-Pacific strategy is creating division and confrontation, he said.

The Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region, comprising the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean, including the South China Sea.

The U.S.’ Indo-Pacific strategy is the country’s vision for a free, open, connected, prosperous, resilient, and secure Indo-Pacific region in which all countries are empowered to adapt to the 21st century’s challenges and seize its many opportunities.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam claim parts of it.

The U.S. and several other world powers have been talking about the need to ensure a free, open and thriving Indo-Pacific in the backdrop of China’s rising military assertiveness in the resource-rich region.