“We have a sacred obligation to make sure the United States military remains the No 1 military in the Indo-Pacific. . ."

The intensive visits are seen as Washington’s push to repair ties with Beijing, which have significantly deteriorated over rising competition on all fronts and tensions in the Indo-Pacific.

US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns has told a virtual town hall that US-China relations have shifted: “We’re back communicating, and that’s essential … We’ve got to live in peace. We’ve got to find a way to communicate.” Photo: AFP

ChinaDiplomacy

US working to stabilize China ties, envoy Nicholas Burns says while questioning Beijing’s peace efforts in Middle East, Ukraine

• Nicholas Burns speaks highly of recent high-level engagement, however he says US is disappointed by China’s response to Israel-Hamas conflict
• Envoy says Washington will defend interests: ‘It is in no way possible for us to allow the Chinese to overtake us in military power’

Kawala Xie

Published: 4:00pm, 12 Oct, 2023

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The US will continue communicating with China to find ways towards “peace and coexistence” despite increasing competition, said its top envoy to Beijing, while at the same time questioning Beijing’s peace efforts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

During a virtual town hall event on Thursday, Nicholas Burns spoke highly of recent high-level engagement between the US and China and said Washington hoped to continue to stabilize ties with its “greatest rival”.

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“We’re back communicating, and that’s essential … We’ve got to live in peace. We’ve got to find a way to communicate,” he said from Beijing while addressing a global audience from the event hosted by the New York-based National Committee on US-China Relations.

“[US-China relations] is going to be the most important bilateral relations in the world … We’ve got to find a way to live together. It’s insanity to think we want this relationship to descend into conflict or a war.”

Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and a bipartisan senate delegation are the latest American officials to visit Beijing this week and the first US congressional group to visit China in four years. The visit offered fresh positive signs for US-China relations as President Xi Jinping, who vowed to improve ties with Washington, received the group.

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (right) talks to US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns during a bilateral meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing on Monday. Photo: AP

The delegation’s visit came after a flurry of trips by US officials in recent months, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, treasury and commerce secretaries Janet Yellen and Gina Raimondo and climate envoy John Kerry. . .

“We have to defend our interests, and we have to be tough minded,” he said, adding that technology was at the heart of competition between the two countries. “Because not only it will have a commercial impact – which economies will be dominant – but also a military impact.

“We have a sacred obligation to make sure the United States military remains the No 1 military in the Indo-Pacific. It is in no way possible for us to allow the Chinese to overtake us in military power.”

The US has ramped up tech restrictions against China in recent years, including banning semiconductor exports and tech investments in the country, aiming to limit Beijing’s access to sensitive technologies that would help advance its hi-tech and military development.

Burns said there would be more ministerial-level Chinese officials coming to the US but declined to say whether a meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden would definitely go ahead at the Apec summit in San Francisco next month. . .

Source: South China Morning Post 

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