Excerpt:
There he spoke out for the need for the U.S. administrations to continue “dialogue” with the Chinese government to end its human rights abuses against the Tibetan people, whose culture he said cannot be “confined” by Beijing to “a museum or to a market of handicrafts.”
“Renewing dialogue must be genuine and productive, and it cannot be just another guise for wasting time or going through the motions,” Walz said in 2016 following a trip to Tibet, Beijing and Hong Kong.
“The human rights of the Tibetan people must be strengthened and protected,” he said, citing “a life-changing lunch” with the Dalai Lama.
The same year, he also spoke out against reductions in funding for the U.S. military by citing, among other things, “tensions rising with our trading partner, China, and the seeds of potential unrest in the Pacific,” including Beijing building islands in the South China Sea.