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Washington, May 3 (China Daily/CNN): The US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns had a tight schedule last month, traveling extensively from Shenyang in the country’s northeast to Hangzhou farther south, while in between back to Beijing to present his credentials to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
His advice to fellow Americans? “Well, learn Chinese and bring more US students to China.I have only one personal goal,” Burns said in an online discussion with the Stimson Center on Tuesday. “That is, we want to learn Mandarin,” he told China Daily, adding that he has discussed this with his wife, Libby.
“We’re struggling — first-year students of Mandarin — and it is so helpful just to have a few phrases when you travel to a place like Hangzhou, Guangzhou or Shenyang,” said Burns, who was confirmed for the ambassadorial post in December 2021 and arrived in Beijing in March 2022.
In the one-hour “in-depth discussion of US-China relations”, Burns discussed a wide range of issues at the center of the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship.
Most of his comments on competition with China, tariffs, human rights, cross-Strait relations and other topics have toed the official line of Washington, but Burns highlighted a point that has been sidestepped over the past few years: people-to-people exchange.
“We’re trying to deepen our channels between the two governments, and that includes the other branches of government, the legislative branch as well as the executive,” Burns said. “On the citizens’ side, as you know, people-to-people diplomacy is really the ballast in any relationship.”
Citing what he called “startling data”, the envoy said there are about 295,000 Chinese students in the US, while there are only 350 American students on Chinese campuses because of the COVID pandemic, while there were thousands a decade ago.
In late April, Burns traveled to a new campus of New York University Shanghai, an American higher education program created in China 10 years ago. “Enjoyed discussing U.S.-China relations with students, faculty, and leadership,” he wrote in a post in both English and Chinese on Twitter on April 25.
The ambassador also visited prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, where there are about 70 American Schwartzman Scholars, and after being serenaded at his residence by The Shanghai Quartet, a string group that formed in 1983, Burns wrote on April 22, “Music truly is a bridge between the American and Chinese people.”
“But we need more of this, and we need it between our students, certainly, we need tourist travel. And we certainly need business travel, because that is kind of the foundation if you will, of any relationship between two countries,” he said.
Chinese Students Harassed
But over the past few years, there had been reports that many Chinese students and scholars were “deported, denied visas, interrogated, and harassed for no reason, with the chilling effect overshadowing the educational and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries”, Qin Gang, then-Chinese ambassador to the US, said in an interview with Forbes on April 29 last year.
“Nothing should cut off the people-to-people contacts and friendship. We shouldn’t let disinformation, lies, prejudice to stand in the way of our people-to-people relations and shouldn’t let them create isolation and division between our two peoples,” Qin wrote in an article published in International Studies that same month.
Burns also acknowledged that while a lot of people have been worrying about the decoupling of the economy, a similar situation in societal engagement would be detrimental to US interests.
“We’ve had a decoupling of our societies over the last three years. It’s not healthy. It’s not smart,” he said.
“Despite the fact that our administration has really focused on the competitive aspects in large measure in our relationship, we do want to see students travel back and forth; we ought to want to see young Americans learning Mandarin, learning the culture and history of this country,” he said.
Just as Burns was speaking, a group of Chinese businesses have traveled to Washington to attend the “SelectUSA” Investment Summit this week, but many Chinese companies registered for the event were unable to attend because their visas were denied, according to Xu Xueyuan, chargé d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in the US.
“Senior US officials have also said on many public occasions that the relationship with China is not a zero-sum game, and that the US has no intention to see a decoupling. We welcome that, but also should say the US’ actions have not fully reflected their words,” Xu said.
Xu made the remarks at an annual business survey-report launch and 2023 “SelectUSA” reception hosted by the China General Chamber of Commerce – USA on Monday. The Chinese delegation of about 50 businesses is the third-largest overseas delegation attending the annual event.
In the online discussion, Burns also said that Beijing and Washington need better and deeper channels, particularly at a time “when you’ve got big problems” and major disagreements in the relationship.
“We’ve never been shy of talking, and we hope the Chinese will meet us halfway on this,” he said.
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US, noted that China and the US have maintained “necessary” communication, whose value and significance lies in enhancing mutual understanding, managing differences and promoting cooperation.
“Communication should not be carried out for the sake of communication,” Liu told China Daily.
“We call on the US side to show sincerity, to work together with China, and to take concrete actions to create the conditions and atmosphere needed for communication and help bring China-US relations back to the right track,” Liu said.
CNN’s Report
US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said Tuesday the United States is “ready to talk” to China, and expressed hope that Beijing would “meet us halfway on this,” according to CNN.
Burns, however, did not give a clear answer about when Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China – which was postponed in February – would be rescheduled.
“Our view is we need better channels between the two governments and deeper channels, and we are ready to talk,” Burns said at an event at the Stimson Center, which he attended virtually.
“We’ve never been shy of talking, and we hope the Chinese will meet us halfway on this,” he said.
Burns reiterated Blinken’s trip to China would be rescheduled “when conditions are appropriate for his visit” adding that the US is ready for “a more broad-based engagement at the cabinet level.”
“(I)t’s hard for me to predict at this at this point when this kind of reengagement will reoccur, but we have never supported an icing of this relationship,” Burns said.
Burns’ comments come after what has been a tumultuous year in relations between Washington and Beijing. Tensions soared following a visit by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan and after a Chinese surveillance balloon traversed the US, leading Blinken to call off that planned visit to China.
“Access for all of us in the US government, and that includes members of our cabinet, has really ebbed and flowed over the last year,” Burns said Tuesday. “There have been periods of time, I’m thinking now of early summer of last year, where we had a lot of access and a lot of communication back and forth.”
“And then other periods, say just in the immediate wake of Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last summer, where the Chinese have shut down channels.”
The ambassador said, however, that after China’s Party Congress, he was able to have “good” meetings with Chinese officials Qin Gang and Wang Yi, and also pointed to President Joe Biden’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali, calling it “a very good, productive exchange.”
He said the US has been calling on China to open all of the channels they suspended following Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, noting that the US and China “have not had a productive exchange on the fentanyl issue.” However, climate talks have resumed, Burns said.
Burns also emphasized that “in recent weeks, in the last month or so, there’s been a consistent communication between myself and senior officials in the foreign ministry, my colleagues in the US mission and their counterparts in the foreign ministry here.”
“That’s been a good sign that we’ve been able to pass messages, trade views, talk about difficult issues, sometimes at great length here in Beijing, but you do need a broader relationship than that,” he said.
The ambassador also said the US would like to see China push Russia to end its war in Ukraine and said the conversation between Xi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “a good first step.”
“It’d be helpful if China pushed Russia to cease bombing of Ukrainian schools, and Ukrainian hospitals, and Ukrainian apartment buildings. We’ve seen a tremendous loss of life just in the last month or two under this vicious Russian aerial assault and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians,” he continued. “So I think that’s what we would like and I’m sure that’s what the European countries would like, that’s what Ukraine wants from China.”
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