SINGAPORE (TVBS News) – The U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, said on Thursday (Sept. 29) that the United States is not seeking to decouple its economic ties from China.
“There’s an engagement part to our agenda, but we also need to confront and compete with China,” he added, stressing the importance of confronting China on its policies that work against its commitment to the World Trade Organisation.
According to the U.S. ambassador, more than 11,000 American companies have invested in China. Still, many want to see uniformity in the economic policy before they make major new investments.
Speaking from Beijing during an online conversation with the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, he questioned some of China’s economic policies, such as the rules that limit foreign companies’ ability to compete with Chinese firms and curb their access to the local market.
The U.S. will continue to compete in technology with the world’s second-largest economy and remind China of its commitments to multilateral agreements on global trade and investment, the U.S. official said.
Despite the recent deterioration of ties between the two nations, Burns remarked that the U.S. and China have a USD650 billion two-way annual trade, despite new tariffs and sanctions.
U.S. citizens also hold about USD1.2 trillion in Chinese equities and bonds, while Chinese nationals hold double the amount in the U.S. market, he said.
The U.S. ambassador further expressed concerns at China’s aggressive turn in its policy toward Taiwan, noting that all nations, especially those in Asia, should be concerned over China’s actions that threaten trade flows through the Taiwan strait.
“They fired missiles over Taiwan into Japanese waters. They simulated a blockade, a naval and air blockade. So we’re actually concerned that the party trying to change policy here is Beijing, and we’ve warned them that we won’t agree to that,” said Burns.
“We’ve all got to be concerned, everybody in your room in Singapore, with the fact that the majority of container traffic in the world flows through the Taiwan strait. It is a lifeline of the global economy and, of course, Singapore’s economy,” he said.
