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U.S. Ambassador exits China, saying the global rival 'underestimated the U.S.'

U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns (left) meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Friday, April 26, 2024, in Beijing, China.
Mark Schiefelbein
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AP POOL
U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns (left) meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Friday, April 26, 2024, in Beijing, China.

Nicholas Burns resigns Friday, wrapping up his tenure as the Biden administration's public face in China.

Burns returns from Beijing after a little more than 2.5 years as the U.S. ambassador, serving in a country that was a central concern for the Biden administration and is likely to draw much attention from his successor.

From the outside, it would seem that China is one issue on which Americans have shown bipartisan unity through the past decade of political chaos. A consensus in favor of engaging with China, has given way to a consensus in favor of competition, if not confrontation; and each administration has built on the last.

President-elect Donald Trump imposed tariffs on China in his first term. President Biden added more, and blocked Chinese access to the highest technology.

Republicans and Democrats each suggest the other side has executed their approaches poorly. Between two rich and powerful nations, the details can be of vast importance. A second Trump administration will take charge with some question of where U.S. policy goes next.

Trump has launched a trade war against China and has talked of raising tariffs again, while also boasting of his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and expressed willingness to work with him to solve global challenges.

But Trump is also surrounded with China hawks in his new cabinet. Sen. Marco Rubio, the nominee for secretary of state, has urged stronger U.S. action against China. Rep. Michael Waltz, Trump's national security advisor pick, spoke on NPR about tougher sanctions against China for supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine. Elbridge Colby, slated for a high-profile Pentagon slot, has urged the U.S. to prepare much more aggressively for possible war against China over Taiwan—even arguing that U.S. aid to Ukraine must be redirected.

On the other side of the ledger is the world's wealthiest person–Elon Musk, whose companies do vital business in China, and has described himself as "kind of pro-China." He invested so much in Trump's victory that he will be in a position of honor on the dais when Trump takes the oath of office Monday. Other tech CEOs whose companies depend on China, such as Apple's Tim Cook, have contributed millions to Trump's inauguration.

All that was on our minds when we stopped by the State Department to talk with Burns – and the talk turned to U.S. policy soon enough. But we began with his impression of China itself.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Steve Inskeep: Is China still a country on the rise?

Ambassador Burns: China is a country that wants to be on the rise. It has a big view of itself, its leadership and its role in the world. To look at it objectively, China is the largest exporter in the world, largest manufacturer in the world, the country that is leading on wind and solar and lithium battery and EVs. There are enormous strengths in its economy, but it's also a country that has suffered a great deal of trouble in its economy over the last couple of years, and that's unusual for them. They've had a 40-year increase in their GDP and quality of life. Everyone is living better than their parents and grandparents, but they've had a property crisis. Most Chinese have their wealth in property. They have a demographic crisis coming up with low birth rates that's going to hurt the economy. And I think most importantly, the government of China has limited very much the private sector of China. That's been a problem because most of the wealth was generated not by state enterprises, but by the private economy.

Inskeep: China has struggled to jumpstart its economy. We could point at a lot of problems they've had from the pandemic to the way they've managed the economy and other things. But I think you're telling me that the government further centralizing power and cracking down on some business leaders and their freedoms might be part of the equation here. Is that what you're saying?

Burns: One of the defining features of President Xi Jinping's rule since 2012 is the centralization of power in the Communist Party, not just in the government of China and the rise of the party and in him himself. He's certainly the most powerful leader since Mao in the Chinese system. Deng Xiaoping's great insight after Mao was that there had to be collective leadership because Mao, in the Cultural Revolution, threw the country into chaos. The country is not in chaos now. But this one man has made a series of decisions, and not all of them have worked out for the benefit of the economy of China.

Many de minimis shipments originate in China — and a consumer advocate says the vast majority of Chinese toys imported to the U.S. pose no concerns, particularly if they're being sold by a reputable company. Here, workers produce stuffed teddy bears for export at a toy factory in Lianyungang, in eastern China's Jiangsu province, on Nov. 22, 2024.
STR/AFP via Getty Images / AFP
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AFP
Workers produce stuffed teddy bears for export at a toy factory in Lianyungang, in eastern China's Jiangsu province, on Nov. 22, 2024.

Inskeep: So you say China wants to be a country on the rise. Is there an open question in your mind as to whether the arrow on the chart is pointing up a little or pointing down at this point?

Burns: When I was being confirmed by the U.S. Senate more than three years ago, I remember several senators asking me about Xi Jinping's maxim: "The East is rising and the West is falling." Well, how does that look three and a half years later? The American economy is extraordinarily strong. The United States has a stronger geopolitical situation in the Indo-Pacific because of the strength of our allies and the allies magnify and multiply American power. So it's Japan and the Philippines and South Korea and Australia. The quad that is India, Japan, Australia and the United States. You can't just measure the United States versus China, to seek who's more powerful. We are more powerful. But with our allies, we're infinitely more powerful. So I don't think the world maybe is quite as rosy as the Chinese felt three or four years ago. They underestimated the United States. And I think President Biden has really produced a stronger U.S. position in the Indo-Pacific.

Inskeep: Have U.S. policies on trade, continued tariffs that were first imposed in the Trump administration, policies that President Biden has imposed on technologies – especially the most sensitive technologies – played a role in shifting the direction of China?

Burns: I think they have. There's a big competition underway between the U.S. and China for military power in the Indo-Pacific but particularly on technology. Technology has moved to center stage. There's a race between the Chinese tech companies and the American tech companies. Who is going to be the first mover in artificial intelligence, in quantum computing, in biotechnology? And we obviously want the United States and democratic countries to be leading that race. And we have placed the Biden administration's significant restrictions on the sale of advanced American semiconductors into the Chinese economy, because we don't want to give that technology to the People's Liberation Army, which is competing against our own military.

On tariffs. China is producing two to three times domestic demand in key sectors – steel, robotics, lithium batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels. And they're dumping in classical economic terms. So they're selling these excess demand below the cost of production. That's what was produced at the beginning of this century, the first China shock. More than 1 million American manufacturing jobs lost. We're not going to tolerate that again. So that's why President Biden put 100% tariffs back in May, last May on Chinese EVs and 50% tariffs on semiconductors and 25% tariffs on lithium batteries. We've got to protect American workers and American businesses. And China's not playing by the rules of the international trade system.

The exhibition booth of Chinese electric car maker BYD at the Auto China 2024, Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in Beijing, China on April 25, 2024.
Stefen Chow for NPR /
The exhibition booth of Chinese electric car maker BYD at the Auto China 2024, Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in Beijing, China on April 25, 2024.

Inskeep: I want to describe in layman's terms the policy on technology and trade. It's been described, I think, as a small, yard-high fence. Is that right?

Burns: On technology.

Inskeep: Meaning that there's a small area of technology, the most sensitive stuff, that you make it very hard for the Chinese to get while trading on everything else and dealing with everything else.

Burns: And the reason we make it difficult is because the Chinese have this system called the civil military fusion. The People's Liberation Army can reach into any Chinese company and say, "We want that product. We want that technology. We want your expertise to help our military." Our government can't do that. It shouldn't be able to do that.

So we don't want to give the Chinese our most sensitive dual use technology that they will use against our own military and to compete with our military.

Inskeep: The United States is still doing an enormous amount of trade with China, hundreds of millions of dollars per year. That can be good for both countries. It could also make one country or the other vulnerable. Are there key parts of the supply chain for the U.S. economy that are in Chinese hands?

Burns: So our two way trade relationship in goods and services last year was $642 billion. China is our third largest trade partner after Mexico and Canada. And here's where the relationship gets complicated. China is our strongest competitor in all the areas you and I have just talked about. It's also a country that we have to work with. Apart from the technology issues where we're trying to keep American technology out of China, we want to sell agricultural products. It's the largest market for American farmers, ranchers and our fishing industry. We want to be involved in health care, in consumer products. We have over 10,000 American businesses in China. And when it's in the interests of the United States and it doesn't help harm our national security, we want to trade. So our administration is not trying to decouple these two economies. That would hurt a lot of people in our economy. And that's what makes the relationship so complex. China is a competitor, but it's also a country that we have to work with in certain areas.

Inskeep: But here's my question. Two years from now, three years from now, five years from now, suppose there is a conflict over Taiwan, which is very easy to imagine. Are there choke points in the economic supply chain where the Chinese government would be able to put great pressure on the United States or cause great disruption in the United States in the event of a conflict?

Burns: Well, certainly, China does control certain key minerals and key materials that are important for our economy. So what President Biden has done is say, let's learn the lesson of the pandemic. We should not be unduly dependent on an authoritarian country like China. So we are trying to and working, I think, successfully in some respects, to alter those supply chains, to bring them back to the United States.

Inskeep: But as of now is the answer yes, they could put pressure on the United States? 

Burns: Well, they're trying. So, for instance, over the last 30 to 40 days, the Chinese have taken measures to restrict the sale of germanium, gallium and antimony.. But there are other sources of supply in Canada, in Germany and in the United States. And this opens up possibilities in mining in the western part of the United States. It's more profitable now in some of these areas for American companies to reopen those mines. We've got to re-engineer these supply chains because we did learn that fundamental lesson in the pandemic.

Inskeep: Sen. Marco Rubio, who is President-elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, did his confirmation hearing this week and among other things, described the U.S.-China relationship as "unbalanced," by which I believe he means we're more dependent on them or more vulnerable to them than the other way around. Do you agree with that?

Burns: I think, you know, there's a degree of mutual dependence if you look at our economic relationship. But I think that Senator Rubio is correct to say we've got to continue this effort, that President Biden started to make sure that we're not unduly dependent in areas that are critical in the event and we hope it won't happen, but it could, that somehow our economic relationship is cut off or severely limited. We've got to do what's best for the American business community and American workers.

Inskeep: Is there any warning you would issue to people who want to take a harder line on China?

Burns: I feel that our administration has taken a hard line on China. My own job as ambassador over the last nearly three years, I think I probably spent about 80% of my time on the competitive issues, the competitive edge with China, and maybe about 20% on the engagement side. I'll bet that 15 or 20 years ago, our prior ambassadors at that time probably had the reverse ratio.

Inskeep: Spending all your time on improving relations...

Burns: But that's where we are with China. It's complicated because we don't want to cut off relations. We want to be able to do things on the engagement side. Let me just name a couple. Fentanyl - leading cause of death in the United States, ages 18 to 45. A lot of the precursor chemicals that make up fentanyl come from black market in China. So they're beginning to help us. They've arrested 300 people. They've shut down firms. We need that cooperation. A second example, we want our senior military officers to be able to talk. During the balloon crisis, you'll remember that in February 2023, I was talking to the Chinese government but I really wanted them to talk to Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley or Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. They refused. If there's a crisis between our militaries, we do want senior people to be able to talk. So there are certain things we've got to do to stay in contact with China, to work with them. But the majority of effort is going to be on the competitive side for some years to come.

Inskeep: Some of the people who are connected with the new administration have an opinion about Russia and China, and their opinion is that the United States, perhaps unintentionally, has driven Russia into the arms of China, for example, by opposing Russia and Ukraine, that they've ended up being effectively allies against the United States. And they would like to drive Russia and China apart. What do you think about when you hear that?

Burns: Well, I'm someone who worked on the Soviet Union and Russia at the White House at the end of the Cold War. President Putin and President Xi Jinping came together well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. They've had more than 50 meetings. They've called each other their closest political friends in the world. And there are two authoritarian countries, and I would add Iran and North Korea to this mix, and maybe Cuba and Venezuela that really want to cut down the power of the United States. They don't want human rights to be enshrined at the United Nations. They're trying to alter that situation. And so this struggle for power between these authoritarian countries and the democratic countries of the world, led by the U.S., began well before the Ukraine war. We didn't force President Putin and President Xi to come together. They did it on their own volition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands during a meeting in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2023.
Sergei Guneyev / AFP via Getty Images
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AFP via Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands during a meeting in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2023.

Inskeep: Some people in the new administration will want to pry them apart, which might mean being friendlier with Russia. But what do you think about when you hear about that goal to pry Russia and China apart?

Burns: We have to stand up for American interests. In the case of China, it's to compete with them and yet try to engage them when it's in our interests to do so. In the case of Russia, it's to stand up to them and to try to help Ukraine avoid a takeover by the Russian Federation. If there's a valiant cause in the world today, it's the cause of Ukraine. The Russians crossed the border nearly three years ago now. They committed the greatest sin in the international system. You can't cross someone's border and take over the country. The great insight of Truman and Eisenhower and all of our post-World War II presidents was to create a world where borders were sacrosanct, where a country's sovereignty was inviolable. And this gets to the red line in the international community. And President Biden has stood up for Ukraine and he's rallied the rest of the world, the democratic world, to support it. We shouldn't walk away from that.

Inskeep: There's another thing that I hear from people who are connected with the new administration, and that is the idea that the United States could be doing a lot more to pressure China to back away from Russia. In particular, they talk about the fact that Russia has been able to sell oil to China in defiance of international sanctions on Russia. They would like to see far harsher sanctions on China for doing that. Do you see more the United States could do to pressure China to back away from Russia?

Burns; Well, we are pressuring China.

Inskeep: Can you do more?

Burns: Well, I think we have to pay attention to this issue. I'm sure the new administration will. But let me give you an example. Several hundred Chinese companies, just shy of 400, are providing dual use technology to the Russian defense industrial base. They're allowing Putin, they're giving him the wherewithal to prosecute this war. We have sanctioned many of those companies. In my last week in Beijing, I just returned from China. I had four meetings with Chinese leaders. And each meeting I said, this is the issue of the moment. You are providing badly needed military support. You are allowing your companies to do it to Russia and it's got to stop. And if it doesn't stop, we're going to continue to sanction you. That's a core American interest, and I would hope the new administration would follow it.

Inskeep: You've pointed out that Chinese companies are under pressure to cooperate with the government whenever the government should deem it necessary.  How much pressure is there on Americans who do business in China and know that the Chinese government could lash out at them in some way?

Burns: One of the problems that some American companies are facing is that when they get inside the Chinese market, it's a very big market, second largest economy in the world, there's sometimes forced technology transfer. The Chinese authorities will say, you've got to share this technology with us. And that gets to intellectual property, which is sometimes the coin of the realm for American companies. The Chinese often make commitments that they don't keep. And so I think American companies are forewarned because of the instability in the U.S.-China relationship but particularly because the Chinese government itself has sent conflicting signals to American businesses, we've seen a dramatic decline in foreign direct investment into China, The first time in 40 years, an 82% decline in 2024, two quarters where there was negative FDI, meaning more capital left the country than came in. We want the economic relationship to continue. But my watchwords in hundreds of conversations that I have with Chinese officials, provincial officials and also central government officials was "you need to create a level playing field for American companies, because invariably the playing field is stacked against them."

Inskeep: Are American business leaders pressured over what they do and say outside of China if they have business interests in China, does the government come after them for what they say here, for example?

Burns: I think it's a very sensitive government. It's a monolithic one party, communist government. They don't tolerate criticism from anybody. They've gotten upset with me for defending American positions and disagreeing with China. And sometimes they do the same with American business leaders. We don't expect American business leaders to carry all of our water. They've got a responsibility to their workers and shareholders. I think the pressure is more from the Chinese government on us. They don't like it when we disagree in public. But of course we have to disagree.

Customers look at Tesla cars at a showroom in Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang province on April 4, 2018.
- / AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
Customers look at Tesla cars at a showroom in Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang province on April 4, 2018.

Inskeep: How many dealings, if any, did you have with Elon Musk over the years who does so much business in China?

Burns: Not much. I exchanged emails with him at one time. I visited the Gigafactory, his very impressive Tesla factory outside of Shanghai. They've since built a battery factory there. It's a very successful company. We obviously want Tesla to succeed. And that's true of GM and Ford as well as Tesla, the big three there in Shanghai. It's a very important industry for the United States.

Inskeep: There are critics of Musk, even including some people in President-elect Trump's coalition, who will say, "oh, you can't trust Elon Musk. He never speaks against China. He can't speak against China." What do you think about when you hear that?

Burns: I don't think it would be fair for me to comment. I'll tell you why, because I've had very limited, one contact with him really. I don't know everything he has said or done. He runs an important business there. And I don't want to be critical of American business leaders.

Inskeep: Do you think that American business leaders can speak freely and confidently, even if they have some exposure to the Chinese government?

Burns: Well, I think it's a problem when Americans are investing in any authoritarian country. There are often pressures by that government for business people not to speak up. So every business person, every company has to make its own determination. And on really critical, difficult issues, human rights, for instance, or what China is doing in Russia. It's really up to me as ambassador to Secretary Blinken and others, we're the ones who should be contesting China publicly. We don't expect that of American businesses. But I can tell you this. It's a very patriotic business community. I know them very well. Thousands of American businesses, they're American to the core. They want our country to succeed. But when it comes to international relations, it's usually a government-to-government dynamic.

Inskeep: And you think that's the way that it ought to be? The U.S. government should say to the business community, don't worry about it. We're going to speak up for you. We're going to speak up for America.

Burns: I think it depends. American businesses all around the world, there may be cases where there are significant problems that, you know, American business leaders should speak up. But I don't want to preach to them. It's hard enough for American businesses to do business in China. They're under a lot of pressure. I try to support them. I worked very closely with the business community. That was my job in part. I didn't pressure them to speak out on all the issues that I was speaking out on.

Inskeep: Right at the very end of your tenure, the United States and China had an exchange of prisoners. Which you must have had something to do with. Can you describe that process, how it worked and what, if anything, it says about the U.S., China relationship when it can work?

Burns: There's a time when you have to speak out and be publicly critical. I've done that. There's also a time when you have to engage in quiet diplomacy. For the past three years, our government worked to free four American prisoners.

Inskeep: They'd been convicted of espionage and various other things

Burns: We believe they were convicted wrongfully. David Lin held for 17 years. Mark Swiden for 12 years. Kai Li for 8 years. John Leung for 2 years. I visited three of them, the first three in prison three times each. I saw the conditions they were living in in prison, and we felt it was unjustified to hold them. We worked very hard to free them. And frankly, one of the most memorable aspects of my time there was in each case they were turned over to our custody. I was able to embrace them, give them their passport and say, you're a free person now. You can go home. And they all got home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've been in touch with several of them by email. And the fact that we've reunited these families, I think it's one of the best things we've done. Our entire government engaged in conversations with the Chinese to say you're holding these people unjustly and they should be freed. And they were.

Inskeep: The Chinese government ultimately was helpful? How would you describe their attitude?

Burns: We were able to reach an agreement with China.

Inskeep: You're being very diplomatic in what you do not say.

Burns: I'm being reserved and not trying to give them too much credit just to say that, you know, we were able to get these four individuals out. I want to say one more thing. When you end your tour in a difficult place like China, you try to think about what have you learned. What I've learned is the United States has one big advantage over China. We have many, but one big one. We have allies in the world. We have this collection of treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific. But it's interesting, in my time in China, the NATO countries and the EU countries, European countries and Canada, they began to work very closely with us on our efforts to limit Chinese power in East Asia because they saw the connection between what was going on with Chinese support for Putin in Ukraine and what's happening in the Indo-Pacific with a very aggressive Chinese government. And I thought that was a very significant development that favors the United States. I think President Biden spent enormous time with the allies. I'm also a former ambassador to NATO, and I remember 9-11 and the hours after that horrific attack who called me first to say, we want to defend you and invoke Article five of the Nature Treaty, Canada. Who is right behind them, Denmark. And so one of the takeaways I have from my entire government career, but also in China, is, boy, it's good to have these constant friends and allies who share our values, who see the world the way we do, and who come to our defense when our back's against the wall and I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and I think that's for Americans to think about our place in the world. We're the most powerful country in the world.

But the way to compete with China and Russia is with other countries with us, and that's who the allies are and we should never forsake them.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.
Reena Advani is an editor for NPR's Morning Edition and NPR's news podcast Up First.
Lindsay Totty
[Copyright 2024 NPR]