China has actively undermined relations with the United States by harassing and interrogating citizens who attend U.S.-organized events in China, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns told the Wall Street Journal.
Burns said China appeared willing to boost ties with the U.S. in November of last year following a meeting between President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. That understanding has since broken down, however, according to Burns.
“They say they’re in favor of reconnecting our two populations, but they’re taking dramatic steps to make it impossible,” Burns told the Journal in an interview.
Burns said China’s government is actively working to decrease America’s standing in the country and disrupt U.S. diplomatic efforts there.
Among China’s restrictive policies is a new effort to block Chinese students from attending U.S. universities, Burns said. Exchange programs have proven more and more difficult in recent months.
“What they tell us and what they tell the world is they want people-to-people engagement, and yet this is not just episodic. This is routine. This is nearly every public event,” Burns explained. “This is a serious breach, and we hope that the PRC will reconsider,” he added, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
The Chinese government has grown more and more bold in its efforts to thwart U.S. diplomats as well. A stark example is its decision to cancel a U.S.-organized concert under questionable circumstances. The government said there would be no electricity at the venue the night of the event. Despite that, however, the venue had events scheduled both the night before and after the U.S. event.
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“It’s not the sign of a confident government,” Burns told WSJ.
Burns added China is not fully cooperating with the investigation into the stabbing of four U.S. college professors in China earlier this month.
“I’m not satisfied that we’ve been given sufficient information as to the motives of the assailant,” Burns told the Journal. “I’ve been concerned for my two-plus years here about the very aggressive Chinese government … efforts to denigrate America, to tell a distorted story about American society, American history, American policy. It happens every day on all the networks available to the government here, and there’s a high degree of anti-Americanism online.”
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