Ambassador pick emphasizes US strengths in countering China

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U.S. Ambassador to China nominee Nicholas Burns speaks during a proceeding to analyse his information earlier the Senate Foreign Relations Committee connected Capitol Hill successful Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden's prime for ambassador to Beijing told lawmakers considering his information connected Wednesday that Americans should "have assurance successful our strength” erstwhile dealing with the emergence of China, a federation helium said the U.S. and its allies could manage.

Nicholas Burns, a erstwhile elder State Department authoritative and diplomat with decades of acquisition successful Washington and overseas, testified earlier the Senate Foreign Relations Committee astatine a clip erstwhile the Biden medication is trying to plaything U.S. absorption overseas to managing contention with China. The station of China ambassador stands to beryllium 1 of the astir important for U.S. overseas policy.

China's assertiveness militarily, diplomatically and economically successful the portion and beyond nether its ambitious president, Xi Jinping, progressively has fixed emergence to warnings of a caller Cold War. This includes hawkish speech of an arms contention with warnings of China threatening to overtake the U.S. successful precocious tech, trade, subject exertion and different arenas portion challenging the U.S. for satellite influence.

In his grounds Wednesday, Burns had a calmer take, framing the U.S. narration with China arsenic manageable.

China “is not an Olympian power,” Burns said. While a state of “extraordinary strength,” it besides has “substantial” weaknesses and challenges politically, economically and demographically.

“We should person assurance successful our strength, American strengths, assurance successful our concern community, successful our innovation community, successful our universities, successful our quality to pull the champion students from astir the world, assurance successful our unmatched military. In our archetypal complaint Foreign Service and civilian service, assurance successful our values that basal successful superb absorption to China’s authoritarian regime.

"We volition win if we physique this American spot astir our diplomacy,” helium said.

He emphasized gathering alliances successful the Indo-Pacific arsenic indispensable to countering China. That included praising the defence confederation Biden announced past period with Australia and the United Kingdom arsenic perchance “transformational." Domestically, the defence pact is champion known for triggering French pique, erstwhile Australia broke disconnected a woody for French-made submarines successful favour of subs with U.S. atomic power.

Burns besides gave what would beryllium a uncommon spot of recognition from the Biden medication to its predecessor, praising President Donald Trump and his past caput of state, Mike Pompeo, for reinvigorating a bloc with Australia, India and Japan.

He echoed the Biden administration's basal connected cooperating with China wherever imaginable but condemning galore of its actions, calling China's attraction of its mostly Muslim Uyghur number “genocide" and its commercialized practices unacceptable. He aligned with U.S. enactment for Taiwan and Hong Kong successful the look of China's subject and governmental actions there.

As the No. 3 State Department authoritative successful the George W. Bush administration, Burns led negotiations to power Iran's atomic programme and to adjacent a atomic woody with India, which immoderate person criticized arsenic weakening longstanding argumentation connected atomic nonproliferation. His enactment since leaving the overseas work includes teaching diplomacy astatine Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Burns' presumption arsenic a elder statesman nether Republican and Democratic administrations is apt to triumph his information wide enactment successful a Senate vote. However, 2 Republican senators, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, are pledging to artifact Biden's nominees implicit unrelated disputes, creating what the Biden medication says is simply a captious shortfall successful U.S. diplomatic practice abroad.

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