Hanscom Smith

Opinion | US should welcome leaders with experience in China

Any American’s familiarity with China should be valued by both countries and serve as a foundation for sustaining essential US-China ties

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Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz reacts as he speaks during the third day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, on August 21. Photo: San Francisco Chronicle via AP

Hanscom Smith

Published: 8:30pm, 23 Aug 2024

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has already faced criticism for his extensive personal experience in China. Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, asserted that “Communist China is very happy” he was chosen as the Democratic Party vice-presidential nominee. Walz taught in China and has reportedly travelled to the country about 30 times.

Without proof to the contrary, it’s just plain wrong-headed to imply that there’s something suspect about the mere fact of foreign travel. Paradoxically, the criticism is partisan, but also reflects the fact that getting tough on China is one of the few areas of common ground in a deeply divided Washington.

As a former diplomat who has spent plenty of time in China myself, I know that first-hand knowledge helps in tackling the biggest US foreign policy challenge. In an era of strategic competition with China, we need any edge we can get. Isolating ourselves and denigrating expertise only hurts American interests.

In the past, a candidate’s foreign experience – or lack thereof – could be seen as a weakness on the campaign trail. Remember the Cold War contrasts in 1988 between George H.W. Bush’s globetrotting and Michael Dukakis’s comparatively thin foreign resume? Now, with China at least, the script is flipped.

For decades, Washington was guided by a consensus that engagement would gradually make China more open politically and economically, drawing it into the US-led international order. Few imagined that China’s sustained economic surge would instead bolster authoritarianism and fuel growing tension with the United States. Engaging with China became conflated with a failed policy of alleged appeasement.

02:07

US vice-presidential hopeful Tim Walz slammed by Trump supporters for China connection

It’s time to reassert the value of experience in foreign affairs and the expertise that comes with it. That doesn’t mean experience is a panacea. “Clientism” is always a risk, and there is a good reason diplomats are rotated between foreign assignments every few years.