Foreign policy experts rip Tim Walz's claim that China has 'moral authority' in Middle East conflict
Former vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., is facing criticism after claiming China could be the voice of "moral authority" in the Israel-Iran conflict.
During a "What's Next: Conversations on the Path Forward" event hosted by the Center for American Progress (CAP) last week, Walz responded to a question from former Biden White House advisor, Neera Tanden, about the "escalatory" nature of the strikes between the two countries.
"Now, who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this? Who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor, and we maybe never were," Walz said of the United States' role in deescalating tensions in the Middle East.
As the United States weighs striking Iran and war in the Middle East rages on, Danielle Pletka, a distinguished senior fellow in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told Fox News Digital that Walz's comments are "ignorance on display."
According to Walz, the United States once attempted "to be somewhat of the arbitrator" in the Middle East, but Americans must face the reality that the "neutral actor" with the "moral authority" to lead negotiations in the Middle East "might be the Chinese."
Walz didn't elaborate on why China would be that world leader.
"It's so staggering to me that Tim Walz was within a heartbeat of the presidency," Pletka said, before adding, "We don't need a neutral player here," and urging him to "stick to local politics."
Andy Keiser, senior fellow at the conservative National Security Institute and former senior advisor on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Digital that someone should "remind Governor Walz that China is far from a moral authority on much of anything," and said China is committing "cultural genocide."
"The Chinese government has reportedly arbitrarily detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps since 2017," according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). "Most of the people who have been detained are Uyghur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang."
In addition to the detentions, "Uyghurs in the region have been subjected to intense surveillance, forced labor, and involuntary sterilizations, among other rights abuses," according to the CFR.
According to Human Rights Watch, President Xi Jinping has "detained human rights defenders, tightened control over civil society, media, and the internet, and deployed invasive mass surveillance technology" in Xinjiang and Tibet, which the human rights watchdog likened to "crimes against humanity."
"I would strongly beg to differ that China has a moral authority on much in the world," Keiser said, and added, "I would not see them as a neutral arbiter here."
"Obviously, we are not going to be a neutral broker between a terrorist and a democratic state," Pletka said. "That's just not how it works. You threatened to kill the President of the United States, but we're then meant to think of you in a balanced way with the state of Israel, our most important ally in the Middle East?"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News' Bret Baier on Monday that President Donald Trump remains a target of the Iranians. "They want to kill him. He's enemy No. 1."
"I don't know how anybody could have said what [Walz] said about the role that China plays. The idea that there is some neutral interlocutor in this world, that anybody is an 'honest burger' is nothing other than grad school silliness," Pletka said.
Pletka added that "Of course, China can't play that role. China is an authoritarian communist [state] that is supporting Russia in its war on Ukraine, that is threatening Taiwan, that has broken its word over Hong Kong."
And she said, "This is not a playground in which you need somebody who can talk to both Bobby and Billy about why it is you don't smack your friends."
"The idea that it should be reduced to something where you have an arbiter who sees the arguments on both sides, no. This is a situation where there's a right and a wrong, and there's a winner and a loser. That's how it should be, by the way, because Iran has fashioned itself as an enemy, not just to the state of Israel, but to the United States."
Nikki Haley – former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, who sounded off on China's threat to the United States on the campaign trail – was quick to criticize Walz's viral comments last week.
"This is absolute insanity. Democrats think that we need the Chinese to be the negotiators between Iran's nuclear production and Israel…God bless Tim Walz. Totally tone deaf," Haley posted on X.
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