Interview with former US ambassador to China
-
As President Donald Trump tries to ease tensions with Chinese President Xi Jinping, don’t expect a quick trade deal after a phone call between the two leaders.
That’s just not how the Chinese government works, according to Nicholas Burns, who recently wrapped up a three-year tour of duty as U.S. ambassador to China under the Biden administration.
“I think it’ll be months of negotiations,” Burns said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine.
Burns’ tenure put him on the front lines of a geopolitical relationship roiled by recriminations over China’s alleged role in the origins of Covid-19, the Chinese spy balloon incident and escalating tensions over trade and the fate of Taiwan. A possible reflection of those tensions: Xi made Burns wait more than a year before accepting his credentials.Burns’ diplomatic career began in 1980 as an intern at the U.S. embassy in Mauritania and included time as U.S. ambassador to NATO and service under presidents of both parties. He made his first trip to China in 1988 accompanying then-Secretary of State George Schultz. At that time, China had an annual gross domestic product of $312 billion, the Chinese government had begun experimenting with village-level democratic elections and Xi Jinping was toiling away as the executive vice-mayor of the city of Xiamen in Fujian province. Thirty-six years later, the value of China’s GDP had hit $19 trillion and Xi had become China’s unchallenged paramount leader at the top of an increasingly repressive authoritarian government.
In the interview, Burns noted it’s important to counter Beijing’s increasingly aggressive economic, diplomatic and military global footprint — but warned that Trump is going about it all wrong, particularly by using tariffs as a cudgel against longtime partners who otherwise might have allied with the U.S. against China.
“That was a big mistake that I think the administration is now trying to atone for,” he said.
