https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/08/22/opinion/walz-jd-vance-foreign-policy/
A surprising thing Walz and Vance have in
common
Both VP candidates have unorthodox views on foreign
policy — and one of them may actually get a chance to be influential.
By
Stephen Kinzer – Boston Globe - August 22, 2024
Neither of this year’s presidential candidates is
known for deep expertise in world affairs. When Donald Trump and Kamala Harris
speak about foreign policy, they rarely do more than repeat weatherbeaten
cliches. Their running mates, however, are bolder. Both JD Vance and Tim Walz
hold startlingly unorthodox foreign policy views. In office, either one might
seek to change America’s approach to the world in profound ways.
Would he succeed? Presidents rarely turn to vice
presidents for national security advice. In foreign policy terms, though, both
the Republicans and Democrats have nominated “kangaroo tickets,” with the
stronger legs in back. Vance and Walz have thought seriously about geopolitics.
Trump and Harris, less so. The next president will have a daunting domestic
agenda. That could give the vice president unusual sway over foreign policy.
Vance is among several dozen Republican members of
Congress who make up an informal caucus opposed to US intervention abroad. He
and the others want to cut off military aid to Ukraine — a jarring challenge to
the bipartisan consensus in Washington. Trump seems to agree with them. Vance,
however, has gone beyond platitudes to specifics. He argues that the Ukraine
war must end with Ukraine surrendering territory to Russia. In February, he
shocked the Munich Security Conference with a speech asserting that no amount
of military aid will turn the tide of war in Ukraine’s favor and that the West
should instead seek “some negotiated peace.”
Hours after Vance’s speech, Harris took to the podium
and asserted the opposite. She vowed that the United States would uphold
Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that she would “work to
secure critical weapons and resources that Ukraine so badly needs.” To do less,
she said, “would be a gift to Vladimir Putin.”
This contrast suggests that the outcome of November’s
election could be decisive for Ukraine. Harris asserted in Munich that
continued military aid to Ukraine is vital “to stop an imperialist
authoritarian from subjugating a free and democratic people.” Vance argues that
Russia poses no serious threat to US interests and could even join us in
confronting China, which he sees as America’s true enemy. Based on their
dueling speeches, a Trump-Vance administration would seem likely to push
Ukraine toward compromise with Moscow; a Harris-Walz team would be less likely
to do so.
Walz has been out of Washington politics since the
Ukraine war broke out and has said little about it. In one recent interview,
however, he warned that Republicans “want to take away our alliances and leave
Russia to do whatever they want.” While Vance envisions partnership with Russia
to confront China, Walz would prefer the opposite.
Anti-China rhetoric has risen to a fever pitch in
Washington. Politicians compete to accuse China of ever more lurid forms of
perfidy and warn of the immense danger it poses to the United States and the
world. In this climate, it is startling to hear Walz dismiss the threat from
China as “hyperbole” and suggest that the United States and China have shared
interests.
No American politicians understand the world better
than those few who have actually lived abroad. They have seen the United States
as others see us. The last national figure with this experience was Barack
Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. Walz would be the first to
have lived in China. That makes it difficult for him to see China as a cartoon
enemy.
Walz majored in East Asian studies at Chadron State
College in Nebraska. After graduating he moved to China for a year, supporting
himself by teaching English. Later he spent his honeymoon there, helped run a
company that sponsored student trips to China, and visited more than a dozen
times. He would be a rarity in Washington: someone who actually knows another
country well — and a vitally important country at that.
Walz has criticized China’s human rights record and
met publicly with some of Beijing’s most outspoken adversaries, including the
Dalai Lama and the now-imprisoned Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong. Yet he has
also called the Chinese “such kind, generous, capable people” and insisted that
the US-China relationship need not be “adversarial.”
As vice president, Walz would be the first major
national figure in this century to promote partnership with China. Vance would
be among the first to suggest partnership with Russia. Each position would
outrage many in Washington.
The next vice president may be as powerless as most
before him. But if that changes, either Vance or Walz could upset America’s
foreign policy applecart.
Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson
Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.