VP TW: people to strive to keep lines of communication open and

DNC-VP got gut and principle: 

** H/t: Jeffrey Wasserstrom 

 

"Perhaps especially when, relations between Beijing and Washington are tense—for people to strive to keep lines of communication open and minimize sources of misunderstanding."
 

"Tim Walz faced a to-go-or-not-to-go dilemma. In the spring of 1989, he stopped in Hong Kong, then still a British colony, on his way to taking up a position teaching on the mainland. He had to decide whether to scuttle his plans when news reached Hong Kong that soldiers had fired on unarmed civilians on Beijing boulevards.

 

Some people urged Walz to head back to the U.S. after the killings, which in Chinese are referred to as the June 4 Massacre. Many at the time felt it was unsafe, unconscionable or both to travel to the PRC as if things were normal. But he stuck with his original plan. People-to-people ties would be important in U.S.-China relations going forward, he felt, and fostering cross-cultural understanding through classroom engagement remained a worthy goal.

 

In 1989, at the age of 28, I might have joined the chorus of those urging Walz to head home. But three and a half decades later, I’m glad that he went to the PRC."

Al