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If there’s one thing politicians in Washington can agree on these days, it’s that competition with China will be the defining issue in US foreign policy and defense for years to come. Even as conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East rage, defense planners and economic policymakers have kept their eye on the People’s Republic.
From disputes over Taiwan and the South China Sea, to trade policy and export controls, to China’s improving ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to human rights, to China’s military build-up, there are no shortage of flashpoints in the world’s most important bilateral relationship, and no shortage of ways for peaceful competition and rivalry to quickly transform into something more dangerous.
The official on the front lines of that relationship is US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. A career diplomat who previously served as ambassador to Greece and to NATO, as well as undersecretary of state for political affairs, Burns was dispatched to China by President Joe Biden in 2022. Burns recently spoke by phone from Beijing with Vox to discuss a range of issues, including Taiwan, trade tensions, and whether or not we’re in a “new Cold War.”
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
It seems like every month or so now there’s a new book or article about how we’re in a “new Cold War” with China. Do you agree with that framing? Is this a new Cold War?
You know, I’m old enough that the first 10 years of my career were during the last Cold War. I worked for President George H.W. Bush on Soviet affairs. I was working with [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice at the time. That was a four-decade conflict against a very powerful country, the Soviet Union, but more of a one-dimensional power: a military, nuclear weapons power.
The situation we’re in right now, the rivalry and competition between China and the West, I think it’s too simplistic to say, well, this is just another Cold War. China poses a different kind of threat to the United States. It’s a much more powerful economic force in the world than the Soviet Union ever was.
Think about China’s Belt Road Initiative, which has given China global reach in all parts of the world. China is the world’s greatest manufacturing and export power. I think China is a more considerable threat than the Soviet Union ever was.
So I think we need a new name for it. The way to think about this is that we’re going to have to compete with China in the future, for this decade and well over the next decade. We’re the two largest economies. We’re certainly competing militarily to see who’s going to be a more powerful force in the Indo-Pacific, which is a very important part of the world. And of course, we have completely opposite ideas about human freedom, about human rights, about individual rights, about freedom of speech, and freedom of the press and freedom of religion.
There are also some issues where we’re ready to work with China. Climate change is one. China’s the largest global emitter of carbon. We’re number two, and we’re trying to work together to help the world face the challenge of climate change. Fentanyl is a second issue, where we’re trying to work with China to reduce the presence of that synthetic opioid in the United States, which is such an incredibly serious public health crisis for us.
So, I think we’ve got to look at China in a very different way than the old Soviet Union.
You’re among the US officials who have recently called out the Chinese government for providing technology and components used by the Russian military in Ukraine. In fact, you said that Russia has “effectively sided with Russia.”
Would it be fair to say that the war in Ukraine is in some ways becoming a proxy war between China and the US, or at least a domain of the rivalry you’re talking about?
Well, for the United States, the war in Ukraine is a pivotal conflict because we are dedicated to the security of Europe, to freedom in Europe, and to the indivisibility of Europe. We don’t want to see dividing lines reappear in Europe. That was the old Cold War.
And the problem is, the government here in Beijing says, “Well, we’re neutral in this war. We want peace.” But that’s not really the reality. The reality is that Chinese companies are providing substantial economic support to the Russian war machine, the Russian defense-industrial base. In fact, they’re providing critical microelectronics and dual-use technologies, without which the Russians would not be able to prosecute this war.
And so our warning to the Chinese is, you’ve got to stop your companies from providing this assistance to Russia. And if you don’t stop, we’re going to sanction you. We’ve already sanctioned a considerable number of Chinese firms. We are prepared to continue that and sanction more if the government of China doesn’t use this considerable influence here in its own country to stop this behavior by Chinese companies.
China and the Philippines recently reached a deal aimed at tamping down tensions in the South China Sea, over the disputed Second Thomas Shoal. But that’s a conflict that keeps flaring up. The US has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. Should Americans be concerned about this spiraling into a conflict that could drag in the United States?
We welcome the recent announcement by the Philippines and by the People’s Republic of China as to how they’re going to try to work with each other on the issue of the Second Thomas Shoal, and we hope that there can be a deescalation of tensions. But make no mistake — we are entirely in support of the Philippines. As you mentioned, we have the 1951 mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. Article four of that treaty covers Second Thomas Shoal, the territory in question.
We have been absolutely clear to the leadership of China. I have done so, and of course, our senior officials in Washington have done so, that that treaty obligation is one that we are very, very certain about, and that we hope that China will back off from its extravagant legal claims, not just to the Second Thomas Shoal but to much of the Spratlys and the Paracel Islands of the South China Sea and to the Senkakus in the East China Sea.
China has pushed out and militarized a lot of the islands and islets in this region over the last 10 years or so. They have been repudiated by international court decisions and they don’t have the law behind them. And so we are very much in support of the Philippines on this particular matter.
I’m sure you’re at least keeping an eye on politics here in the United States. Former President Donald Trump has said, in effect, that Taiwan should have to pay for its own defense, and has accused it of stealing semiconductor business from the US. Does uncertainty about the future political situation in the US make it hard to communicate US positions to your Chinese counterparts over issues like Taiwan?
I’m not going to comment on our election, and I’m not going to respond to statements made in the electoral process.
I can tell you this: on the issue of Taiwan, our policy hasn’t changed. The United States has had a consistent One China Policy since the 1970s and President Biden has made it clear that our policy is unchanged. What we want on this very difficult issue is a peaceful resolution, and we specifically believe that China should commit itself to a peaceful resolution.
Obviously over the last nearly two years now, since then-Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in early August of 2022 — and by the way, we support and continue to support her right to visit, and the right of members of Congress to visit Taiwan — we want and hope that the authorities here in Beijing will commit to peace and stop the intimidating statements they’ve made over the last couple of years.
Would you encourage more members of Congress to visit Taiwan?
It’s up to members of Congress to decide where they’re going to travel in the world. Congress is a coequal branch of the US government with the executive branch. All I can say is that if members of Congress want to visit Taiwan, they obviously have a right to do that.
Earlier you mentioned climate change as one potential area for cooperation between the US and China. In May, the US raised tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, batteries, and solar panels. Is there a contradiction there? If we’re serious about fighting climate change, isn’t there an argument that we should encourage China to flood the world with cheap EVs and solar panels?
I don’t think there’s a contradiction. On the one hand, we do want to work with China. We’re the two largest carbon emitters — China being the largest carbon emitter in the world — and we want to work with China to help our two countries and the rest of the world to respond to this existential challenge, which climate change certainly is.
On the other hand, one of the lessons we learned from the pandemic is that no country should want to rely on a single source of supply for critical materials. And so what President Biden has done under the Inflation Reduction Act is now to try to stimulate green energy research, and green energy production in the United States. We don’t want to have to rely on a single source for lithium batteries or solar panels or electric vehicles. We want to stimulate that production in our own country, which the IRA funds are doing right now.
Certainly, one of the problems that we have with China right now is that China, in those three categories that I mentioned — lithium batteries, electric vehicles, and solar panels — is now producing well beyond domestic demand in China. It’s beginning to try to sell these technologies below the cost of production and dump them on foreign markets with a design of trying to harm the domestic green industries in places like the European Union or Brazil or Mexico, Canada, and the United States. And that’s not fair. It’s not wise.
We don’t want to see 95 percent of the production of these key technologies in just one country. We should want to see a diversification of supply. And it’s not just the United States, Josh. Turkey, Canada, the European Union, Brazil have all taken actions against China because they’re trying to dump their products on the rest of the world, and that’s going to be a job killer. We went through a “China Shock” in the United States at the beginning of this century, where well more than a million Americans lost their jobs because of Chinese products being dumped in our market.
I’ve made the argument to the Chinese leadership here that you cannot expect us to stand by and do nothing if you’re trying to, in a very unfair way, harm our domestic industry. So I think from a climate and environment perspective, we Americans are going to be much better off if we can have our own sources of production. That’s good for our economy, but it’s also very good for our fight against climate change.
Speaking of the China Shock, here in DC, it does feel like there’s been a reassessment of the economic orthodoxy of that period. Certainly, the idea that China would inevitably democratize as it opened up to trade has proven incorrect. But from your current perspective, do you feel that Chinese economic growth is a net positive for the United States? Does a rising tide still lift all boats?
I would say two things. First, there’s no question that we have to adhere to the lessons of what [we] just went through in the Covid crisis, and make sure that we are doing everything we can to build up domestic sources of supply in the United States, so that we can be self-sufficient in areas that are critical to our national security.
The second point, however, is we have a very strong and large economic relationship between the United States and China. China is our third largest trade partner, after our two North American neighbors, Canada and Mexico. And there are thousands of American companies doing business here. We think there are at least 750,000 American jobs that depend on trade with China. And so we’re not trying to decouple the two economies.
What we’ve done is follow a policy of de-risking, and that means we’re trying to make sure that on critical materials like advanced semiconductors, we’re not going to permit the sale of advanced semiconductors for AI processes into the Chinese market, because that would simply give the People’s Liberation Army an advantage that we don’t want them to have. But trade, in most other areas, is open between the United States and China, and we think that’s good for our economy and probably for the global economy.
On the topic of decoupling, I can remember 20 years ago or so when I was in college, there was a huge interest in studying Chinese, in travel to China. And it feels like that’s really changed as tensions between the countries have grown. Fewer people are learning the language, fewer Americans are studying in China. I’m sure you’re always in the market for smart American China specialists. Is there a concern we are losing out on expertise as fewer Americans are engaged with China and Chinese issues?
I am concerned about that. To give your point a data point, we had 15,000 American students studying here a decade ago. We have just 800 American students here now. That’s because of Zero Covid, the Chinese policy that really shut down this country so Americans couldn’t come here for a number of years, and now they’re coming back in very small numbers.
I do think it’s a national security issue. We Americans are going to be competing with China for global power well into the 2030s and perhaps beyond. And so we need to have lots of young Americans who speak Mandarin, who’ve had a formative experience here in China, who understand the country, the history, and culture of China.
We’re going to live with China. We’ll compete with China. We have an enormous number of differences with the government of the People’s Republic, but we also have to coexist, and we have to live together in peace, and that’s going to take lots of smart young Americans, hopefully, who will come to China over the next several years to develop that kind of expertise, whether they go into the public sector or the private sector, or the nonprofit sector.
We don’t want to see some kind of permanent separation of our population. We want to see American students return, tourists return, and a healthy business relationship. That’s the way to be smart about the competition with China and yet to make sure that we’re living peacefully with China as well.
I’m curious about your relationship with your Chinese counterparts there. Given the level of competition and tension, do you ever find it hard to maintain a cordial working relationship with them?
Well, if you’re speaking about the government here, my job is to be the American conduit, the American link into the government of China. So I see Chinese officials all the time. I can tell you this: I have a civil, courteous relationship with them and I think they do with me. I think that’s important, the kind of respect that you show each other. But these are often very tough conversations. We are on the opposite sides of all of these major issues and my job is to defend America. My job is to be clear about the differences that we have. And my job is to sometimes warn the government of China when we have substantial disagreements with them.
It’s been interesting to me. I’m a long-time diplomat. I started as an intern at the State Department back in 1980, 44 years ago. So I’ve been at this a long time. Sometimes the Chinese press will criticize me; “Oh, Ambassador, your job is to be nice to us. Your job is to be a bridge.” And I say, “Well, my job is actually to defend the United States, to defend our interests.” And sometimes you can’t be best friends.
