The Epoch Times

[The Epoch Times, 15 Ògmhios, 2024](Full report by Epoch Instances reporter Lin Yan) Previously two years or so, US Ambassador to China R. Nicholas Burns has visited many Chinese language provinces and cities by practice. He lately gave an unique interview to the Monetary Instances and talked concerning the strangest sights and experiences he encountered whereas working in China.

When Burns took workplace, he reached the height of the Chinese language Communist Occasion’s strict COVID-19 clearance coverage, greater than a 12 months later than the traditional induction interval.

In March 2022, Burns and his spouse Libby Burns arrived in Beijing and noticed a scene from the film “Star Wars”. white protecting clothes (generally often called Dabai).

They need to cross the drawbridge and enter a room lined in plastic from flooring to ceiling, the place they may endure a nucleic acid take a look at. Burns could not perceive what Baymax was saying as a result of they had been carrying masks and thick protecting gear and could not see their faces.

Burns instructed the Monetary Instances that it was like a Chinese language model of the film “Blade Runner” set in 2022.

“That is the strangest sight I’ve ever seen,” he mentioned.

For the subsequent 21 days, Burns and his spouse had been quarantined within the ambassador’s residence, unable to see anybody. They had been additionally not allowed to maneuver across the hospital as a result of they had been instructed that there was a danger of safety personnel being uncovered to the illness.

Throughout Burns’ first 9 months in workplace, he was quarantined for 45 days.

Burns in contrast his position in China to that of the US ambassador to Moscow on the top of the Chilly Battle within the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties. The purge of the CCP could have left Burns with a better sense of isolation than earlier than.

And the top of this absurd farce is even stranger. On December 9, 2022, the chief of the Chinese language Communist Occasion, Xi Jinping, all of the sudden introduced the top of dynamic cleaning and the lifting of most emergency restrictions. Over the subsequent two months, massive areas of the Chinese language inhabitants had been rapidly captured and even killed.

For the US Embassy, ​​80% of their staff (together with relations) received the epidemic rapidly, with virtually 1,000 folks in complete.

The US-China political stress is sort of a lengthy afternoon conflict

Burns, a former pupil of the Harvard Kennedy Faculty, has at all times been cautious and well mannered. There appears to be a giant distinction between his private picture and the diplomatic picture of a job answerable for dealing with the tense and high-profile relationship between the US and China.

Specifically, Xi Jinping has extra management over the CCP system than any earlier celebration chief, which makes Burns’ job more difficult. For instance: After Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the Home of Representatives, visited Taiwan, Burns was known as eight instances to take heed to Chinese language complaints, and every protest assembly lasted between two and 4 hours.

“They protested vehemently, and I defended Pelosi’s proper to go to Taiwan as head of the equal division of the US authorities,” Burns mentioned.

“China is extra brutal now than it was a long time in the past,” Burns instructed the Monetary Instances in an interview.

He mentioned that it’s troublesome for the US and China to have casual communication in diplomacy. He mentioned there was now solely formal “consensus diplomacy” and there must be “backroom diplomacy” over dinner or drinks, however such casual talks had been “few and much between”. .

In 2023, International Minister Qin Gang and Protection Minister Li Shangfu disappeared. Nobody is aware of the place they’re, besides that many Chinese language Communist Occasion officers have been kicked out of workplace on corruption expenses. Present Chinese language officers are much less prepared than previously to alternate casual information with overseas diplomats.

US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel as soon as boldly requested concerning the whereabouts of Li Shangfu and different CCP officers on social media X, which attracted media consideration.

In a latest interview with the media “The Wire”, he mentioned, “Now, it might be painful (to inform the reality concerning the CCP), however it’s the fact.”

The ambassador to Japan mentioned Burns did a wonderful job. He mentioned Burns was the “good cop” and he performed the “unhealthy cop”.

“John F Kennedy (former US ambassador to the Soviet Union) talked concerning the ‘lengthy night conflict’,” Burns instructed the Monetary Instances, “we are able to scale back the potential for battle.”

Burns mentioned, “We’re locked in an ideological battle with Beijing – our democratic values ​​versus their authoritarian mind-set. We battle this battle on daily basis, making an attempt to attain our imaginative and prescient for shield the longer term.”

The highest leaders of the US and China met in San Francisco final November. Earlier than the revolution, there have been 345 weekly flights between China and the US. At present, it has survived lower than 100 flights.

In 2020, there have been 15,000 American college students learning in China, however now solely 800 stay. The variety of bilateral vacationers has additionally dropped from hundreds of thousands to 1000’s.

Final week, 4 Iowa alternate academics had been stabbed in northeast China, however the causes are nonetheless unknown. Burns spoke to the trainer who was struggling and mentioned publicly that he was indignant and deeply disturbed by what had occurred. One of many academics has returned to the US with the assistance of the US Embassy and Consulate.

Editor-in-Chief: Li Yuan #