Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Address to the 2024 U.S.-China Hong Kong Forum

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning from Beijing. I'd like to begin by thanking the Chairman of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, John Zhao, and the Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, Bi Jingquan, for the invitation to speak with you this morning. I also want to greet my friends and colleagues at our Consulate General in Hong Kong, my friend Consul General Greg May and his team, my predecessor and friend, former Ambassador Max Baucus, the great U.S. Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky, who played such a major role in this relationship, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China and Taiwan, Rick Waters, who was a close, close colleague of mine when he was in the U.S. government. There are many distinguished participants attending this forum. I'd like to also acknowledge, of course, my counterpart in Washington, Ambassador Xie Feng, who spoke to you just now. I wish I could be with you in person, but due to the press of business, I had to remain here in Beijing.

I was very pleased to meet some of you when I visited Hong Kong in March of this year, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today about the U.S.-China relationship. It is obviously a complicated relationship, and one that is at its core, competitive. Over 45 years of diplomatic relations, we've seen our relationship evolve certainly into the most consequential bilateral relationship of any in the world. That global significance makes it absolutely critical that we manage our relationship and our competition in a responsible way and peacefully. And that's why we spent the past 18 months engaged in extraordinarily intense diplomacy between our government and the government in Beijing, to restore the channels both of our governments needed to communicate and to manage our differences. I'm pleased to report that thanks to the tremendous work on both sides, that effort has largely succeeded after months of very little high-level communication between our governments.

 In 2023, we had Secretary Blinken visit Beijing in the middle part of that year, we saw a series of high-level engagements from Secretary Janet Yellen, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Podesta, Secretary Raimondo. They all came to China over the last 18 months. The Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer of the Senate, led a bipartisan congressional delegation to China, to Shanghai and Beijing — the first in five years. And China's officials came to the United States. Director Wang Yi met with President Biden and Secretary Blinken about a year ago. And Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao also came to meet with Secretary Raimondo and Ambassador Katherine Tai. This all culminated, as you know, in the Woodside summit roughly one year ago, when President Biden and President Xi met outside of San Francisco.

Thanks to all these efforts, we've seen progress on some areas of cooperation. We've resumed military-to-military communications, something that's critically important for our two militaries that operate in such close proximity to each other in the South and East China Seas. Our Presidents also agreed to cooperate in attacking the scourge of fentanyl, the leading cause of death in American society. Together, we've taken important steps to reduce the flow of dangerous precursor chemicals to the cartels in Mexico and Central America, but much more work is needed. We're also tackling climate change, which our two countries have a shared responsibility to address, as the largest carbon emitters in the world, and we've established various working groups on commercial, economic, financial and agricultural issues, and we established an information exchange on export controls enforcement. Last but not least, both President Biden and President Xi committed to strengthening people-to-people ties. These bilateral engagements allow for conversations that while are often quite difficult, they help drive down the probability that competition veers into conflict. They also demonstrate our commitment to managing this relationship responsibly, because competition remains the defining feature of the relationship. The U.S. and China are strategic competitors, and I expect our relationship will remain fiercely competitive for many years.

We have major differences that we must address. Despite decades of reform and opening, the PRC still discriminates against American businesses and investors. We want to see progress on intellectual property and an end to forced technology transfers, unfair subsidies and other measures that tilt the playing field against American companies in China. We are deeply concerned with the after effects of the Counter-Espionage Law, the amended State Secrets Law, and other recent measures. These efforts to effectively criminalize corporate due diligence and the sharing of routine economic data increase risk, and they undermine China's investment climate.

On trade, Beijing is trying to restore its economic growth by investing in even more manufacturing capacity. This strategy relies on Beijing trading partners absorbing a flood of underpriced exports at the expense of our own workers and our own businesses. We have an obligation to American businesses, particularly in manufacturing, to prevent a second China shock. That is why President Biden quite rightly raised tariffs on Chinese EVs, lithium batteries, and other technologies. And on the subject of technology, as we've made clear time and again, we will ensure that American technology, capital and know-how are not used to undermine U.S. national security. We cannot and will not compromise on this point. We will also never back down from promoting our core interests and values, sanctioning Chinese companies exporting dual use technologies to support Putin's illegal war in Ukraine, promoting freedom of navigation and the rule of international law in the South China Sea, and defending our ally, the Philippines, from illegal and ill-advised Chinese aggression, and arguing that the PRC should commit to a peaceful resolution of differences in the Taiwan Strait. We want to advance our deep and cherished commitment to human rights and human freedoms in Xinjiang, Tibet and yes, in Hong Kong itself.

We have many critical differences with China. I want to be equally clear, however, that the United States is not seeking to decouple from China. As Secretary Janet Yellen has rightly said, decoupling would be a disaster for both of our economies. While bilateral trade has declined over the past two years, after a record-setting 2022, the PRC remains our third largest trading partner, and we are the PRC's top trading partner ourselves. We want healthy, fair, two-way trade and investment to continue. Our derisking measures are serious and warranted and very important, but we do want to see trade and investment continue in the great bulk of our current economic relationship. Our approach contrasts sharply, by the way, with the PRCs, broad, opaque and highly restrictive controls on high tech exports, data and both inbound and outbound investment. So again, our relationship is competitive and will remain competitive for many years to come, but we are now better connected and better able to manage that competition between the two governments in a responsible way. As we mark the 45th anniversary of U.S.-China diplomatic relations, it is fitting that you are honoring two great leaders, and thank you for doing this, honoring President Jimmy Carter and honoring our former Secretary of State, the late Henry Kissinger. Thank you for doing that, because, much like today, historical complexities in geopolitics shaped the U.S.-China relationship when it entered the modern phase 45 years ago. Despite differing politics, both President Carter and Secretary Kissinger, and I must say, led, of course, by President Nixon, shared the conviction that the U.S.-China relationship was critically important. Driven by this conviction, both President Carter and Secretary Kissinger helped establish the foundation for our contemporary diplomatic and economic relationship. So I'd like to join you in recognizing the important contributions they made, both of them, to the U.S.-China relationship.

And it is in that spirit that I would note that our two governments have an obligation to manage the bilateral relationship in an effective way. But it is the Chinese and American people from all walks of life — students, business people, young professionals, musicians, artists, athletes, academics — they're the ballast in the ties between our two countries. As we look to 2025, we in U.S. Mission China will work to support the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, to help he and his new team to succeed in this complicated, complex and yet vital relationship with China.

We held an election watch party at our Embassy in Beijing to observe the results of the election last week. I told the hundreds of Chinese guests who were present that you can't call yourself a democracy if you don't allow citizens to vote their leaders in or out. As the American Ambassador here in China, I was never so proud to see the American people exercising their sacred right to vote. The right to vote is the keystone of our democracy, and our democracy is surely the best and most just form of government in the world today, as it will continue to be for the future. So thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. I hope you have candid, productive discussions. I wish you all the best for your time in Hong Kong. Xiè xiè nǐ.