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US ambassador to China slams Beijing for undermining diplomacy in extraordinary rebuke... and accuses them of bizarre plot to cut electricity from concert
President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last year promised to step up people-to-people contacts between their countries.
But the U.S. ambassador to China has delivered an extraordinary rebuke to his hosts, saying Chinese authorities have interrogated citizens who visit American-organized events, whipped up anti-U.S. feelings and even pulled the plug literally on a concert arranged by his embassy.
Nicholas Burns accused China of scaling up restrictions on the embassy's social-media posts and undermining diplomacy, in the clearest sign yet that the Biden administration believes Beijing is not sincere in its promise to improve ties.
'They say they're in favor of reconnecting our two populations, but they're taking dramatic steps to make it impossible,' the 68-year-old veteran diplomat said.
Biden and Xi met in San Francisco in November last year as part of an attempt to improve all but frozen relations.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns said Chinese authorities had interrogated citizens who visit American-organized events, whipped up anti-U.S. feelings and even pulled the plug literally on a concert arranged by his embassy
They agreed to resume high-level military contacts and cooperation to combat the illicit trade in fentanyl.
'The two leaders reiterated the importance of ties between the people of the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and committed to work towards a significant further increase in scheduled passenger flights early next year, in parallel with actions to restore full implementation of the U.S.-China air transportation agreement, to support exchanges between the two countries,' the White House said in a read-out of the meeting.
Xi even said he hoped 50,000 American exchange students would visit China during the next five years.
But that detente has not gone according to plan, Burns told the Wall Street Journal. He detailed 61 events since then when China's Ministry of State Security or other bodies tried to prevent people attending or intimidated those that did.
Some attendees had even been interrogated.
'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,' he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.
'This is a serious breach and we hope that the [People's Republic of China will reconsider.'
On one occasion, he said a venue told the embassy there would simply be no electricity on the day of an event. Yet, it had allowed events there the day before and the day after without any apparent problems.
In one case, he said, a venue pulled the literal plug on a concert organized by the U.S. Embassy without explanation, saying there would be no electricity on the day of the event and effectively scuttling it. The venue hosted an event the prior night and then another one the night afterward with no apparent issue, embassy officials said.
Chinese paramilitary policemen march past the U.S. Embassy in Beijing
Joe Biden and Jinping met for the first time in over a year for high-stakes talks in November to try to bury the hatchet amid dangerously escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing
'It's not the sign of a confident government,' Burns added.
He said he had repeatedly raised the issues in private meetings with senior Chinese officials but that nothing had been resolved.
'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,' he said.
'It happens every day on all the networks available to the government here, and there’s a high degree of anti-Americanism online.'
Yet there have been other signs of improvement. Senior Biden administration officials from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have visited, along with more junior figures.
And China has promised to send panda bears to zoos in Washington, San Francisco, and San Diego.