US presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ choice of Tim Walz as her vice-presidential running mate has raised eyebrows and questions in China, where she first visited in 1989, the year the military crushed pro-democracy protests.
Protesters spent weeks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square demanding democracy before the military launched a deadly crackdown on June 4, 1989.
Mr. Walz’s wedding occurred on the fifth anniversary of that politically sensitive date.
Discussion of the Tiananmen events is strictly prohibited in China, but many social media users on Wednesday made indirect references to Mr Walz’s time in the country.
The 60-year-old Minnesota governor and former school teacher has traveled to China dozens of times, including summer trips with student groups for tourism and cultural exchange.
According to media reports at the time, he first went there in 1989, when he went to Foshan, a city in China’s southern Guangdong province, to teach English at a local high school for a year.
According to an article in a local US newspaper, Mr Walz married his wife Gwen on June 4, 1994.
“He wanted a date he would always remember,” his wife said.
On Wednesday, social media users in China questioned the timing of Mr. Walz’s arrival in the country in 1989 and hinted at an ulterior motive.
“He came to China at a time of turmoil, and he obviously had a special mission,” one user commented on the Weibo platform.
Another wrote: “Is he from the CIA?”
The third said: “Look at this year and you won’t be able to escape doubt.”
‘Fixed effects’
Mr. Walz has rejected the notion that the United States and China are necessary rivals, a view that has become widely held in Washington in recent years as trade and geopolitical differences with Beijing have grown.
“I lived in China, and like I said, I’ve been there about 30 times,” he said in a 2016 interview with agricultural news website Agri-Pulse.
“But if someone tells you he’s an expert on China he’s probably not telling you the truth, because it’s a complex country,” he said.
But despite his positive comments on the Chinese people and culture, Mr Walz has also been critical of the government there, telling local US media in 1990 that with “proper leadership” the country could achieve great success.
In 2016, while representing Minnesota in the US House of Representatives, he met the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing has labelled a dangerous separatist.
China’s Foreign Ministry told AFP on Wednesday it would not comment on Ms Harris’s selection of Mr Walz as her vice-presidential running mate, calling the election an internal matter of the United States.
“We hope that the US side will work together with the Chinese side to move forward in this direction,” the statement said.
Social media users wondered what it would mean for Mr Walz’s personal relationship with his country if he were elected.
“If Harris is elected president, Vice President Walz will definitely have an impact on her China policy,” one user wrote.
And while one post included comments from a 2016 interview by Mr. Walz in which he suggested there was potential for cooperation between the United States and China, other users expressed skepticism.
“2016 was a bygone era,” one wrote.
“Don’t carelessly assign a personality to your opponent.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
