U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns has drawn the ire of his Chinese Communist hosts, who issued a high-profile rebuke after the envoy outlined American advantages in the strategic competition.
“We noted that Ambassador Burns has recently made negative comments on China on multiple occasions,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a state media outlet during a press briefing. “We oppose defining the bilateral relations with competition and smearing and attacking China.”
The official maintained that Burns’s remarks about the competitive nature of the relationship are inconsistent with President Joe Biden’s dialogue with Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November. The rebuke was triggered by Burns’s latest acknowledgment of the “competition underway for military power and military influence” during a public event in which he expressed a marked optimism about U.S. prospects in that competition, given China’s economic struggles and U.S. relationships across the Indo-Pacific.
“In fact, the gap is widening in favor of the United States,” Burns told the East-West Center on Friday, referring to the size of the two economies. “China, of course, has had an extraordinary run over the last 40 years, the fastest rise to economic power in recorded history, and yet, that growth rate is slowing down. … China is entering a different phase of its economic history, while the United States is booming.”
Burns offered that prognosis as officials in both capitals continued a series of competing initiatives to fortify relationships and expand influence in the Indo-Pacific. Chinese military officials are “pursuing closer cooperation” with three countries that border India, as Nikkei Asia Review noted, which has emerged in recent years as a partner of the United States and other leading democracies in the region. And Secretary of State Antony Blinken launched his diplomatic tour through South Korea and the Philippines as Seoul hosted a democracy summit that included not only the top U.S. diplomat but also a video message from Taiwan.
“Bad actors in the pay of authoritarians pulled out all stops, coming close to poisoning our information climates and interfering in the outcome, but the government and people of all political persuasions stood as one in the really insidious efforts to sow the seeds of division and discord,” Taiwanese Digital Affairs Minister Audrey Tang said via video in a thinly veiled reference to Chinese Communist interference in the most recent Taiwanese elections. “I am proud to say that in the year of balloting worldwide, we ably demonstrated what can be achieved by doubling down on democracy to free the future together.”
Jin bristled at Tang’s participation. “What the world needs today is not creating divide in the name of democracy,” Lin said, per the South China Morning Post. “China sternly urges the South Korean side to abide by the one-China principle and stop providing a podium to the Taiwan independence forces.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, whose government made artificial intelligence and related emerging technology a key theme of the summit, emphasized the same kinds of risks that Tang discussed.
“Fake news and disinformation based on artificial intelligence and digital technology not only violates individual freedom and human rights but also threatens democratic systems,” he said.
Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, predicted on the cusp of that summit that the U.S. would remain “the world leader in artificial intelligence” and other technologies and choke off Beijing’s access to U.S. innovations.
“We are not going to give China a leg up in the military technology competition that we’re currently in and will be in for a long time,” he said.
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He added, “Of course, we’ve had our ups and downs over many decades, but this is a particularly, if you’re an American and you want our country to succeed both at home and overseas, this is a particularly optimistic time when it comes to our economic performance, especially with advanced technology.”
Lin grumbled that Burns’s remarks “go against the spirit of the summit meeting in San Francisco” between Biden and Xi. “We stand against the U.S. interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights and values and restraining China’s legitimate right to development in the name of competition,” he said.
