United States Ambassador to China | Beijing makes US-China trade ‘impossible’

(Beijing) The United States ambassador to China accused Beijing of making strengthening ties between Chinese and ordinary Americans “impossible” in a sharply-worded interview published Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.

In recent years, China and the United States have clashed over a range of issues ranging from trade and technology to human rights and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Relations stabilized somewhat after President Joe Biden met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in San Francisco last year, but tensions persist between the world’s two largest economies.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns told the Wall Street Journal that Beijing was trying to undermine ties between Chinese and American citizens, intimidating Chinese participants at embassy events and fueling anti-American fervor online.

He said Chinese authorities pressured citizens not to attend 61 public events hosted by the embassy since November, and attempted to intimidate those who did attend, including questioning them late in the evening at their home.

For example, according to him and other American diplomats, a venue was affected by a power outage, abruptly canceling an embassy concert.  

“It’s not just episodic. It’s the routine. It’s like that at almost every public event,” he said.  

Mr. Burns also said he was “not satisfied” with the level of transparency regarding the motivations of a man who stabbed four American university professors in a park in northeast China this month. this.

He expressed concern about “very aggressive efforts by the Chinese government…to denigrate America, to tell a distorted story of American society, of American history, of American politics.”

“This is happening every day on every network available to the government here, and there is a high level of anti-Americanism online,” Mr. Burns said.

AFP asked the Chinese government for a reaction on the subject, which did not respond.

Beijing often complains that Washington limits the travel of its diplomats based in the United States, and questions or expels some Chinese with valid American visas.