BEIJING — As he prepares to leave Beijing, the American envoy to China believes that relations between the two rival powers are the most stable in recent years. But there is no guarantee that they will stay that way.
It “remains a very difficult relationship, often very contentious and, in the long term, deeply competitive,” the ambassador said. Nicolas Brûle told NBC News in an interview this week. “And you can’t get around that.” We are rivals for world power.”
Still, the world’s two largest economies have learned that “we need to talk to each other,” Burns said, adding that “there are times when we need to work with China because it’s in the American national interest.” .
China is increasingly challenging the U.S.-led international order in place since the end of World War II, working to varying degrees with Russia, Iran and Iran. North Korea.
The two countries have deep differences on issues such as trade, technology, status of Taiwan and human rights, and blame each other for cyberattacks and the deadly fentanyl crisis in the United States.
“China has been unduly provocative in Taiwan strait with its military maneuvers,” Burns said, adding that Beijing “made a major mistake and continues to make that mistake by helping Russia continue its illegal and barbaric war against Ukraine.”
Beijing denies helping Russian war machine or carrying out actions cyberattacks on the United States which, according to Burns, is reaching “an unprecedented scale of mortality”.
Burns is ending his role after nearly three years of managing the daily tensions of what is often described as the world’s most important bilateral relationship and navigating some of its lowest points in decades.
If Beijing wants to maintain the newfound stability in relations, “I think it’s incumbent on the Chinese government to make that happen,” Burns said.
One thing the Chinese government can do, he said, is lift its sanctions against Senator Marco RubioR-Fla., if confirmed as President-elect Donald Trumpthe Secretary of State. Rubio and other US lawmakers were sanctioned in 2020 for their criticism of authorities. crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
“They need to talk to the U.S. secretary of state,” Burns said.
Burns declined to comment directly on how the new Trump administration might handle U.S.-China relations, although he said he had been in contact with former senator David PerdueR-Ga., who Trump announced he would appoint as his ambassador to China.
Trump has advocated a tougher approach towards the country than the Biden administration.
In what may be indirect advice to Trump and Cabinet appointees, Burns stressed the importance of talking with China as well as maintaining the regional alliances that the Biden administration has strengthened in order to counter China’s influence. China, whose future is uncertain as Trump begins a second policy. term.
“We need to keep our allies close,” Burns said, pointing to South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia and India.
Working with allies “multiplies and expands American power in trying to deter some of these really pernicious actions” by China, Russia and others, Burns said.
“This is a way to compete effectively with China, to win part of the competition for power, but also to maintain peace with China,” he said.
Slowly unfreeze links
In-person diplomacy was disrupted during the Covid-19 pandemicwhich kept China’s borders closed for three years. Meanwhile, the previous Trump administration increased criticism of Beijing’s handling of the outbreak, which began in China.
When Burns arrived in Beijing in March 2022 to take office, he spent most of the first month of his job in quarantine at the ambassador’s residence, unable to meet anyone, even though the relationship that he was charged with leading was heading to new lows.
At the same time, Chinese nationalism and anti-Western sentiment have reared their head in state media and online platforms, and the people-to-people exchanges that Burns likes to call the “ballast” of the relationship are failing. are never truly recovered.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has held the strictest power since then. Mao Zedongand made a internal campaign against corruption which, during Burns’s term alone, saw a foreign minister and two defense ministers removed from office and the public eye. This increased surveillance has made some Chinese officials, academics and average citizens more reluctant to engage with foreigners.
Relations reached their lowest point in decades in August 2022, when Rep. Nancy PelosiDemocrat of California, Speaker of the House at the time, visited the island of Taiwan, claimed by Beijing despite China’s objections. They sank even lower in early 2023, when the US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon which had been spotted in the continental United States.
“It took us a while to get over it,” Burns said. Since then, both sides have sought to stabilize relations.
China has only recently resumption of direct military and other communications which were interrupted in protest against Pelosi’s visit. The head of the US Indo-Pacific Command has since had two meetings with his Chinese counterpart.
“It’s important because we’re trying to reduce the likelihood or risk of any type of accident or misunderstanding between our military forces,” Burns said.
Another example of improving cooperation, he said, is tackling the problem Fentanyl crisis in the United Statesone of the areas in which Biden and Xi agreed to cooperate on a summit in California in November 2023. Many of the precursor chemicals used to make this deadly opioid originate in China before being processed into fentanyl in Mexico and other countries and then smuggled into the United States.
“We started to see action from the Chinese government,” Burns said, including 300 arrests, shutting down online sales of illicit chemicals and banning the export of 55 synthetic opioids and precursor chemicals.
Burns highlighted other successes of the Biden administration, including the release of four Americans detained in China for years: David Lin in September and Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung in November.
“Meeting them at the airport, handing them their passports, telling them that they were free people again was an extraordinary moment, certainly for me as the American ambassador,” Burns said.
Although all of the Americans the State Department considered wrongly detained by China have been released, hundreds more remain imprisoned on various charges, more than in any other foreign country. They continue to benefit from consular assistance.
In the interest of keeping the lines of communication open, Burns urged members of Congress from both parties to redouble their efforts to travel to China.
“I have hawkish views on China-US relations. Many members of Congress do too,” he said. “But you have to be here to understand the opponent, talk to them and know the reality on the ground.”
Janis Mackey Frayer reported from Beijing and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.
