Advertisement
Advertisement
US-China relations
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns attends the World Peace Forum at Tsinghua University in Beijing on July 4. Photo: Reuters

Top US envoy to China says zero-Covid restrictions block access to Americans, possibly violating agreement

  • Ambassador Nicholas Burns suggested that his missions’ inability to visit US prisoners in China violates 1980 consular agreement
  • Taiwan is ‘at the centre’ of US-China disagreements, he said, adding that ‘we want a peaceful relationship’
China’s severe zero-Covid restrictions are undercutting the ability of US diplomats to do their job, at times in potential violation of bilateral consular agreements, at a time when relations are already strained, a top US diplomat in China said Tuesday.

Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to Beijing, said strict enforcement of pandemic rules has made it difficult to visit Chinese ministries or US consulates around the country, move consular staff in and out of the country or attend to American prisoners held in Chinese jails, in addition to the frustration it has created for many ordinary Chinese.

“We haven’t been able to get in to see most of the American prisoners here for the last three years because the government here has used, they said that for Covid reasons, for precautionary reasons, they won’t let our diplomats into these prisons,” he said, speaking to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs by video from Beijing.

03:59

Protests flare across China over zero-Covid, lockdowns after deadly Urumqi fire

Protests flare across China over zero-Covid, lockdowns after deadly Urumqi fire

“I fundamentally objected to that,” he said. “We have a right under our 1980 consular agreement to see American prisoners.”

Burns, who has served under six US presidents and nine secretaries of state, added that protests by Chinese people over the weekend speak to their frustration with the restrictions even as security has tightened over the past 48 hours in many Chinese cities.
The Buffalo, New York native, said the US and China have many differences, whether over trade, technology, state controlled markets, defence and human rights, adding that the administration of President Joe Biden believes that the Chinese people have a right to protest peacefully and to be heard.

“Life here is difficult because the Covid restrictions are so severe. There are reasons for them, given by the government of China. I don’t want to debate those publicly. I want to be respectful, but” they have a different view, he said. “So we’ll just have to see how this plays out. It’s obviously a very important event for the people of China.”

Time to be China stock bulls as zero-Covid ‘has passed point of no return’

Beyond the many areas of competition between the two countries, Burns said the US hopes to work with China in areas that lend themselves to cooperation, including climate change, food security, global health and agricultural trade.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Burns was confirmed by Congress as ambassador in December 2021 nearly 11 months after US President Joe Biden took office – a lengthy gap given the importance of the US-China relationship – in part because Senator Marco Rubio stalled his nomination, citing Burns’ past experience in consulting.

Rubio, a Republican from Florida, is one of the US Congress’s most vocal critics of Beijing.

“His credentials are unimpeachable, but Senator Marco Rubio is using Burns,” Esquire magazine said in a November 2021 article. Rubio is “not only hamstringing the administration, he’s doing it in without having to back up anything he says. He’s a legislative stalker”.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with Ambassador Nicholas Burns on October 28. Photo: Xinhua
Burns, 66, has a quarter century of diplomatic experience involving China, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Nato, in addition to stints teaching at Harvard University and consulting with the Cohen Group, all of which has burnished his reputation in US foreign policy circles.
Since he arrived in Beijing in April, Burns has had to grapple with closed doors, quarantines amounting to 40 days – mostly due to trips out of China, including to Indonesia for the G20 summit earlier this month – and a lack of traction. Beijing cut off key channels with Washington after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in early August.

Other factors have challenged Burns in his current role.

China’s zero-Covid policy and dismal US-China relations have left senior Chinese officials unwilling to meet with Burns, US lawmakers or administration officials. And new US restrictions on exports of high-level semiconductors and chip-making equipment and a failure to unwind hundreds of billions in punitive tariffs enacted during the administration of former president Donald Trump have angered Beijing.

“They have shut down most of our channels of communication – eight specific ones, military and civilian. They won’t talk to us,” Burns said in a Foreign Affairs interview last month. “I do have contact with the Foreign Ministry; we’ve had a series of contentious meetings.

US struck a blow against China’s chip ambitions, but the war is far from won

“I must say, we want to get to a place where we can air our differences in a very detailed way, and get beyond our talking points.”

Burns’ lack of diplomatic access in Beijing may undercut future US-China relations.

Frustrated by the closed doors Burns has faced in Beijing, the White House levelled some of the same treatment in recent months on China’s ambassador to Washington, Qin Gang, analysts said.

When the Tianjin native was tapped to be China’s likely next foreign minister, however, some in Washington regretted they hadn’t forged closer ties. The White House has denied it restricted Qin’s access to senior US officials.

“Nick Burns is not getting great access in Beijing, so there’s been some desire for reciprocity,” said one analyst with close ties to the administration. “If Nick Burns is not getting great access in Beijing, we’re not going to give him great access here.”

Xi-Biden talks: Taiwan is still the big red line in China-US relations

Burns has walked a fine line in Beijing, espousing US policies that are unpopular in China even as he has tried to bolster bilateral ties. In mid-August, he called on Beijing to prove it’s not an “agent of instability” after its strong military reaction to the Pelosi visit, which he called a “manufactured crisis” on CNN.

In a show of force after the visit, China fired missiles in waters near Taiwan, sent dozens of military aircraft across the median line and deployed forces around the island in a simulated naval embargo.

“China should respect the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, act peacefully, not disturb what has been a peaceful Taiwan Strait for the last 68 years,” Burns said Tuesday. “It’s an issue that’s the centre of our disagreements with the People’s Republic of China.”

China views Taiwan as a breakaway province to be reunited by force if necessary. Few countries, including the US, recognise the self-governing island as an independent state.

At the same time Burns has tried to reach out on ordinary Chinese on social media platforms Weibo and WeChat even as he has acknowledged the challenge of trying to get around state media restrictions.

No ‘advanced tech’ factories in China for US firms getting Chips Act money

When the US embassy uploaded a speech to Weibo by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on US-China relations in May, it was blocked within two and a half hours. A second attempt two days later saw it taken down in 20 minutes.

“We’re subjected to censorship here,” he told Foreign Affairs. “But you know, in those two and a half hours or 20 minutes, a significant number of people saw his speech.”

China believes the US is a declining power and that it is the ascendant power, Burns told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in testimony last year, adding that he disagrees.

While the US certainly has its share of problems, he said later, the move to revive and improve the competitiveness of the US economy through major legislation, including the $US52 billion Chips and Science Act and the US$369 billion Inflation Reduction Act, are putting the country in better stead to compete with China.

“We assume that that competitive side of the relationship is going to be with us for quite some time, because of these structural, philosophical, ideological, national security differences that we have with China,” Burns told the Chicago audience Tuesday. “We do not want this relationship to end up in conflict. We want a peaceful relationship with China.”

Additional reporting by Robert Delaney

7