US-China: What are the two superpowers competing for?

Laurel Rapp

Good afternoon, and welcome to Chatham House. It’s wonderful to see all of you here. I’m Laurel Rapp, the Programme Director of the US and North America Programme here at Chatham House, and I’m really delighted today to welcome Ambassador Nicholas Burns, visiting us from the other Cambridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Yeah.

Laurel Rapp

In the US and North America Programme at Chatham House we look at how the US’ role in the world is changing, how durable these changes are, and what the implications are for the UK, for Europe and for the world. And one of those most consequential areas of change, or continuity, is the US approach to China, and so we are here to discuss this topic with the Former US Ambassador to China, who has returned from Beijing just a year ago, and the topic of our discussion today is, “US and China: what are the two superpowers competing for?” So, we’re going to look at how the US should approach its relationship with China into the future, not just these three years ahead, but well beyond, and how this affects all of us living in the US, in the UK, in China, anywhere in the world.

And so, I’m delighted to introduce Nick Burns. He is the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of Practice and Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he founded and chairs the Future of Diplomacy Project. He has taught many generations of students, including me. Most recently, he served as US Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China from 2021 to 2025, working to stabilise one of the United States’ most important and challenging relationships. Across his three decades in the Foreign Service, he’s served six Presidents and nine Secretaries of State, in roles like Under Secretary for Political Affairs, which is the senior most ranking career role in the State Department. Leading negotiations on the US-India civil nuclear agreement, serving as the US negotiator on Iran’s nuclear programme, and as Ambassador to NATO, the only time the alliance invoked Article 5, after the September 11th attacks.

Beyond government, he is Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group, co-chair of the Aspen Strategy Group, and the Aspen Security Forum. He’s a proud, lifelong member of Red Sox Nation, Baseball. Please welcome Ambassador Nick Burns [applause].

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Thank you.

Laurel Rapp

And, Nick, I’m so pleased to be having this conversation with you, and I’m going to put three propositions on the table, and you can agree or challenge them, but the first is that the US-China relationship is deeply consequential, right? It affects how the global order will be shaped for years to come, with very significant implications for the US, the UK, how we negotiate our economic ties, our security arrangements, and how we all move around in the world. The second is that it’s volatile. Even…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Hmmm hmm.

Laurel Rapp

…before Trump and the tariff wars, postponed summits following the Iran war these past weeks, the crises have been a feature of this relationship, and you have been in Beijing to manage some of those crises. Whether that was Representative Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the balloon shootdown…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Yeah.

Laurel Rapp

…and so this will be a feature of this relationship for years to come, as well, crises. And the third is that this is a bipartisan arrangement, right? In the US, there is increasing political polarisation and division, but on China, this seems to be a constant across administrations, across parties, not – maybe small tweaks on the margins of what tactics might be used, but in terms of the threat perception, there’s more consistency on China than there are on a whole host of other issues. And so if an enduring feature of this relationship is that it’s consequential, volatile, how should the US be approaching China? And as a former Policy Planner, we always start with core principles. What are we trying to achieve? What are the goals? What are our interests? And so, what are our interests as the United States towards China?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Well, Laurel, thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. It’s a real pleasure to be back at Chatham House. I was involved here on the panel of Senior Advisors for a number of years, and I think the role of Chatham House, as well as our Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, is especially important now in a world that appears to be unravelling. Where the order that these – our two institutions – and it’s really good to see Bronwen here and the great job that she’s been doing, and great to see Robin here, an old friend of mine. I think the role here is very important to try to understand how the world is being challenged…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…and how we, living in democracies, can find a way to return to reason and diplomacy and a world of rules. So, I’m very happy to be here at Chatham House on that basis.

Also happy to be here with Laurel Rapp, who served at a very high level in the State Department, as Deputy Director of Policy Planning, which is – works directly for the Secretary of State for Joe Biden in his administration. And glad to see that she has moved with her family to London, and as an American voice, obviously, here at Chatham House. So, Laurel, I agree with all three of your propositions to start.

Second, just in terms of the US and China, and our relationship between the US and China is not dissimilar from – than the relationship between the United Kingdom and China. In fact, one of my closest colleagues in China was Ambassador Caroline Wilson, who’s a career China specialist. She spent a lot of her career in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. We live down the street from each other, and we’re often together trying to form a united front of the European Union, of Britain, of Japan, of South Korea of Australia. All of us understand, number one, in terms of national interests, we have to live in peace with China. In the nuclear weapons world, going to the brink is not rational and would be potentially catastrophic. So, I think all the Western countries understand that. I think the Chinese leadership understands that, that there is a limit to competition. That’s point one.

Point two, but it’s a heavily competitive relationship, and I think, at least in the case of the United States, if you look at our national interests, I don’t think you’ll see dramatic change in our China policy into the next decade, because we have, in essence, a structural rivalry and that would be – we are very definitely, the two of us, competing for military power and influence in the Indo-Pacific. If you think of the ambitions of the People’s Liberation Army, this dramatic increase in conventional and nuclear weapons capability in a completely non-transparent way on nuclear weapons, the PLA is pushing out. We see it in the Spratlys and Paracels, pushing out against the sovereign territory of both Vietnam…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…and of the Philippines. We see it in the East China Sea, something like 330 days a year, the Chinese military harassing Japanese administrative control of the Senkaku Diaoyu Islands. We see it in the Yellow Sea, where the Chinese have acted in an intimidating way against South Korea and we see it on the 2,500-kilometre border between India and China, where the United States and other Western countries have. We recognise the state of Arunachal Pradesh’s sovereign Indian territory, China doesn’t. And so, we don’t want to fight, but we have to be strong enough, and the US with its military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia, our military partnerships with India, Singapore, New Zealand, that’s a strong force to limit the expansion of Chinese power. I think that’s probably the most acute issue we have right now.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Second area of competition is technology and, in a way, when I took the oath of office in 2021, I would have said, I think I did say when I – in my confirmation hearings, “This is going to be a very important issue.” By the time I’d left, I thought technology, and I’m sure it’s true with Britain, as well, had, kind of, taken centre stage.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

If you think of the commercial competition between UK, Germany, Japan, US, on one side, our tech companies, and the big Chinese tech companies, Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, space-related technologies, cyber technologies, it’s really acute as to who will be first mover. But maybe even more importantly, as we’ve seen with DeepSeek, who’s going to adapt the technology in a way that’s faster and maybe more usable for countries throughout the world? Not just in some of the advanced technological societies. And, of course, we’re going to see spin-offs of new military technology as the AI competition, the quantum competition, proceeds. We’ve just seen in the last 19 days, I know we’ll talk about the Iran war, AI-enabled weaponry.

Laurel Rapp

Yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

We’ve just seen in the last four years the first real use of drone warfare that the Ukrainians pioneered, now the Russians have used to some, unfortunately, some advantage. So, I think that that tech competition is going to inform the first competition on the military power. And then quickly, obviously we have, in terms of supply chains and tariffs, all of us have challenges with an Ira – with a China which will – it’s now 33, China, 33% of global manufacturing. All manufacturing is China. That number might now go to about 40% in the next couple of years. How sustainable is that for global trade? And the Chinese have a $1.2 trillion surplus with the rest of the world. Not sustainable if you’re Japan, South Korea, the EU, the UK, the United States, Australia.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

And then finally, after those first three areas of competition, the Western countries still, and I can say as an American, the American people still believe in human rights and in democracy and human freedom. And we worked very closely together, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, on human rights abuses of the Kazakh and Uyghur population in Xinjiang, in Tibet, in Hong Kong, lack of religious freedom.

So, four areas of competition. But we have to live in peace, and maybe one way to round this out, Laurel, would be to say, there are obvious areas where we have to work with China. Climate change is the one that strikes me as most important. I think it’s deeply, deeply disappointing to see the United States take itself out of the Paris Agreement when we are the second largest global emitter. China, number one. And we had been working in the Biden administration fairly closely with the Chinese, on methane levels, on nitrous oxide, on coal burning, and had been learning a lot from the Chinese on what they’d done so brilliantly, in many ways, on renewable technologies.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

That is all now, at least from the position of the United States, unfortunately, we’re not doing that, and that means that all the more reason for Europe and the United Kingdom, Japan, to be co-operating with the Chinese on that. But there are other areas, global health, fentanyl, in our case, where we should be working with China. So, it’s a very complicated relationship.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

If you think about this, we are largely competing, and that’s most of the Western countries, we have to co-operate in some areas, and we have to live in peace. Managing those contradictions is, I think, a challenge for all of us.

Laurel Rapp

And we’ve seen the Trump administration raise some of these areas of concern and some of these areas of co-operation with Beijing, and that were – that was going to feature as part of the state visit…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

The summit, yeah.

Laurel Rapp

…later this month, which has now been postponed maybe to next month, maybe to the month after that. If and when this summit does happen, what should the US seek to secure in that conversation?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Well, I – President Trump was going to be in Beijing March 31-April 2, when the President said on Monday in a press conference that he would seek to delay that, because he wanted to be in Washington during the war. I thought, well, that’s interesting, that’s assuming then that the war is going to be on two weeks from now. I’d been hoping that we would have sought an earlier exit. But obviously, during a war where the United States and China have such divergent interests, it didn’t make sense to have a Head of Government Summit.

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

But it does make sense to reschedule it, and The White House said yesterday they want to, and that’s – that will be a good thing when it happens, but I think only when the Iran war ends. And at this point, I think it’s entirely impossible to say, given the complications in the Strait of Hormuz, when that war is going to end.

The Trump administration has been interesting on China, and I’ve supported President Trump in one respect. He’s trying to stabilise the economic relationship between us. We have a $750 billion two-way trade relationship. China’s our third largest trade partner. Britain has an important economic relationship with China, Germany does, France does, Japan does. So, the idea that all of us would be trying to trade on a fair basis, have a – and I know President Trump wants to have, kind of, a truce in the tariff wars of 2025, which makes eminent sense for the global economy and the Chinese and American economies, a truce on the supply chain wars.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

So, no more China withholding rare earth…

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…minerals and materials from the global market. No more the United States withholding such materials and minerals. And then to return to a bigger trade relationship for us in agriculture, China’s the largest market for US agriculture, very important. I thought that made sense, and that was the core, I think, of President Trump’s ambitions for this meeting that was to have been held.

What I have more trouble with and don’t agree with, that the Trump administration policy is almost all centred-on commerce, on trade, investment, tariff, supply chain. They’re important. What’s missing? What’s missing is any talk of human rights, silence from the Trump administration. What’s missing is Tru – President Trump personally standing up for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who has undergone this – I mean, she has been – had to confront this intimidation campaign by the government of China for the last three months. She’s going to be in the Oval Office tomorrow morning with President Trump. I think she deserves, and they’re a rock solid ally of the United States, unstinting support against the Chinese…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…for trying to sanction Japanese companies, stop Chinese tourism to Japan, etc. I think that’s important.

Third, what’s missing is that we really have a consensus among Republicans and Democrats on China policy, and it still exists, and the core of it was that we would promote trade, but not in dual-use technologies that were important for our national security. So, President Biden, with a lot of Republican support, three and a half years ago, prohibited the export of advanced American semiconductors for AI purposes, prohibited American investment in Chinese AI industry. Why? For two reasons. We didn’t want to give China our most advanced technology so that their companies could out-compete ours in the AI realm.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

And very importantly, under the civil military fusion in China, where any technology or Scientist in China has to work for the PLA, if the PLA asks, we don’t want to give the PLA a leg up technologically in its competition with the US Navy and Air Force in the Indo-Pacific. We had a consensus on this, but then President Biden – President Trump, excuse me, decided in December he would allow Nvidia, AMD and Intel, three of our tech companies, to sell advanced semiconductors into China. Jensen Huang, the Chairman of Nvidia, said yesterday in a press conference in the United States that they would now dramatically expand the production of the H200 chip. that’s not their most advanced chip, the Blackwell is, but it’s an advanced chip for the China market. I think this is a disastrous decision.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

It’s helping the PLA, and the Chinese playbook on this is interesting. We’ve seen it happen over two decades. They will allow a British company, a Japanese company, a Korean or American company, to come in with a technology that they don’t have. They’ll replicate the technology in nine or ten months, and then they’ll kick the foreign company out. That’s what’s going to happen on the H200, and so a short-term benefit for some companies, long-term detriment to American, and I would say Japanese, Filipino, Taiwan security in the Western Pacific. So, there’s compelling areas where I think the Trump administration is going – is really, in a way, running a détente-like policy with China, and that – it doesn’t serve our national interests.

And the last example I give you, Laurel, would be Taiwan. The good news is that the Trump administration does want to continue to sell advanced defensive technology to Taiwan. They’ve been doing that for nearly five decades, and that is to increase Taiwan’s deterrence and to affect the decision-making of the People’s Republic of China vis-à-vis Taiwan. That decision now to sell $11 billion of arms has now been put on hold, unfortunately. I hope the administration will go back to it, but they haven’t. And I hope the administration will agree in our – on our One China policy that every President since President Nixon has had, and that is to position us in such a way that we discourage…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…Chinese violent action against Taiwan and try to encourage and motivate the Chinese to think about a diplomatic solution, if there is one, but at least to have a peaceful set of conversations with the Taiwan leadership. And there’s been a fuzziness and lack of clarity…

Laurel Rapp

There has, there has, hmmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…by the administration.

Laurel Rapp

Yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

So, I think the policy seems to be shifting in a weaker direction, which I believe is not consistent with where most Democrats and Republicans are in Congress and certainly in the national security community.

Laurel Rapp

You raised Iran earlier in this conversation, and that’s ve – been very much on our minds here at Chatham House and in the UK, looking at the, sort of, operational days ahead. But I think looking beyond the horizon too on what are these broader implications for this war? And I don’t know if you still assign your students this book, “War of Choice, War of Necessity.”

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

We just read it two weeks ago…

Laurel Rapp

Has anyone read this book…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…on my course.

Laurel Rapp

…the Richard Haass book, “War” – and it looks at the – it looks at two case studies in US diplomacy, the Gulf War and then the Iraq War, but this has been very much on our collective minds of, what are these bigger implications? What does Iran mean for the US relationship with China? What does it mean for Russia? So, if you want to take the China piece in particular, how does this change the US approach to China? Does it strengthen it? Does it complicate it? Where are we on this?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Now, we’re 19 days into this terrible war, and it has been tremendously complicating for the US-China relationship, because China had been importing about 1.3 million barrels a day on a discounted basis from Iran. China considered Iran a close partner. You remember last September when President Xi Jinping hosted this parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It was – had a very anti-Japanese flavour…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…which is why we boycotted it, but who was there? President Putin was there, Kim Jong Un and President Pezeshkian of Iran. And there has been an alliance of sorts among those three countries with China.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

So, the Iranians have been providing Russia with the Shahed drones, the North Koreans have been providing Russia with troops in eastern Ukraine.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

China providing about 90% of the microelectronics that fuel the Russian defence industrial base. This has been a coalition of sorts that’s been a threat to Europe.

Laurel Rapp

This is the so-called ‘axis of resistance.’

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

The axis…

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…of resistance of the axis of authoritarian powers. And the Chinese had had a very close relationship with Iran. I think the Chinese problem in the last 19 days is that they haven’t lifted a finger to help Iran in any way. I didn’t ex – I did not expect they would help militarily, but I would have expected a stronger diplomatic response, that really hasn’t been there. In fact, the Chinese interest, if you lis – if you look at what Wang Yi and others have been saying, the Chinese Foreign Ministers, they’ve been more concerned about their investments in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman. Their investments in those countries are far greater economically than in Iran, and it shows. They’ve not been happy with the IRGC sending ballistic missiles…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…or attack drones into all those countries, including this morning, in several attacks on the UAE. And I think if you combine that with the fact that China also provided zero support for Venezuela, another close friend of China, back on January 3rd, when the US launched a special operations raid against President Maduro, I think it has affected the Chinese credibility in the world that these are two close partners and China was unable, really, to speak up for either of them when they were afflicted. So, that’s one aspect of this.

Secondly, the Chinese have an obvious interest in getting the Strait of Hormuz open. I think there was a 0% probability that they would have accepted President Trump’s offer the other day that China join some international group that would try to reopen and maintain the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. They’re just not going to do it because Iran is a friend. And the Chinese, I think, want to have a special arrangement for Chinese ships to pass through, although most…

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…have not to this date. So, it’s a really complicating factor. I’d say this about Iran, we – when Laurel and I were studying together, she was a student at the Harvard Kennedy School, we did read this book by Richard Haass that makes a distinction between wars of necessity, wars of choice.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

And his point was that the 1990-91 war, where Britain and the United States were closely involved with a big Arab coalition to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Kuwait was a war of necessity for the world of 1990 and 1991. This is George HW Bush and Margaret Thatcher. This is all the Arab countries supporting the coalition, because Saddam had broken, I think, the biggest rule in international politics. You can’t take over someone else’s country, and the threat was that Saddam would go for the Saudi oil fields. War of necessity.

2003, and I was Ambassador to NATO in 2003, remember the public demonstrations in this city, as well as in Western Europe, against the US and the UK and Poland and Australia going into Iraq. A war of choice. This war over the last 19 days, clearly a war of choice. Iran did not represent a strategic threat to the United States. The Iranian nuclear programme, although we negotiated it for 20 years, we, the Brits, the Americans, the French, the Germans, the Russian, Chinese, never resolved it. The nuclear programme was not on the verge of being operational in terms of Iran having a nuclear weapon. That is not accurate.

Laurel Rapp

Right, an imminent threat, that was the…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

No imminent threat.

Laurel Rapp

…standard.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

So, no imminent threat to the United States. I would say no imminent threat to Western Europe or the United Kingdom. And I – from the very beginning of the war, very little probability that air power alone could actually achieve a change in the regime. This is 93 million people, an entrenched hideological – ideological regime that survived the Iran-Iraq War in the 80s, when all these leaders were young men and young women, and they go four or five layers deep, so as the Israelis or the Americans, if the use of air power over the last 19 days has killed many of the Iranian leaders…

Laurel Rapp

Including overnight…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…they are replaced.

Laurel Rapp

…last night.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Including overnight.

Laurel Rapp

With Larijani, yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

That’s right, with the IRGC Head, and then Ali Larijani the day before.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Other people take their place. Very little probability that Arab power would accomplish that, and a, I think, universal 100% probability the Iranians would fight back and seek to close the Strait of Hormuz. So, here we are 19 days in, and as I flew into London, I arrived just this morning, very dispiriting to see the criticism of our allies by the United States Government. I was a Diplomat from – beginning in 1979, when I was very young, until just last year, and the biggest lesson I learnt in my diplomatic career, the most important lesson, is that the United States, while very strong, is much stronger and more capable and more influential when we work with our allies. The United Kingdom, great ally, and so we should listen to our allies, and we should respect our allies and understand that we are democracies.

We’re not going to agree. I think of Suez in 1956, I think about 2003 when France and Germany said, “We’re not going into Iraq,” we didn’t end the NATO alliance over that. We understood that was a principled disagreement and that there were other things we had to do with the French and Germans. And I think that the great majority of the American people in public opinion polls support the United Kingdom and our relationship and support NATO…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…and don’t want to see the alliance end. So, I’m very disappointed by some of the talk from The White House and some members of Congress. I think the majority of the Senate strongly in support of NATO.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm, and one of the areas – so we’ve seen tension across the board between the US and the UK and Europe in different domains…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Hmmm.

Laurel Rapp

…most recently on Iran. We’ve also seen it in how the UK has approached China, right? And critiques that the US has made about approaches not just from the UK, but from Germany, from Canada, from France, from other countries that are seeking to diversify partnerships. Maybe as a response to a more – or a less predictable, more volatile US, maybe as a natural way to just build out commercial opportunities around the world, like the US has done over its history, as well. How should we think about – how should the US think about how the UK is approaching its relationship with China, and what advice would you have for the UK as it starts to embark on this project?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Well, it’s a very good question. I wouldn’t – I would not want to give public advice to the government of the United Kingdom. I don’t live here, and that’s for Brits to do in your – in their democracy. But I would say this, under President Biden and President Trump, both Presidents have said, “We want to have a big economic relationship with China. We want to trade and invest.” Except in the narrow band of technologies, national security, that both the US and China have prohibited. And so, you know, the hallmark of the upcoming summit when it happens, between President Trump and President Xi Jinping will be commercial, trade, investment, supply chain. So, it should be no surprise when the British Prime Minister travelled to Beijing with the same mandate, or the German Chancellor, or the French President, or the Canadian Prime Minister. They’re doing exactly what President Trump and President Biden have done. So, I thought the criticism was not only unwarranted, it was hypocritical.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

I mean, all of us do not want to see a repeat of the old Cold War when none of us had relation – economic relationships with Mao’s China, or Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. And the idea that we have closer economic ties is important to sustain a largely peaceful relationship with China. So, I don’t agree at all with the criticism of the British Prime Minister, ‘cause we’re here in London, for having done that.

Laurel Rapp

I have two more questions for you, but we have wonderful questions coming in online, and then, audience, we will be calling on you very shortly too, so think of the areas of enquiry you’d like to proceed with. So, you run an initiative at Harvard called the “Future of Diplomacy,” and it looks at how Diplomats, not just from the United States, but Diplomats from all over the world, will be used, what context they will operate in, in an era of AI, in an era of more constrained resources, in an era in which diplomacy is really changing. So, what do you foresee those changes to look like over the next decade? And how should young people who are interested in these careers think about how that might be a different activity from what their parents were involved with?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Well, that’s a very good question, and the answer I’m going to give might seem very obvious to a Chatham House group. It’d be the same answer I would expe – same kind of group I would expect at the Council on Foreign Relations or at Harvard Kennedy School. And that is, I think governments these days, by necessity, are putting enormous time, attention and resources into technology, because it’s the coin of the realm. And we cannot be powerful and influential in the world if we’re not – if governments aren’t focusing on AI, quantum computing, biotechnology and the other technologies that we’ve mentioned, number one.

Number two, we’ve seen in Ukraine how important it is for a society – I’m speaking of Ukraine now, to be able to stand up and defend their country against a larger, more powerful foe, and to use technology to blunt, as they did, in 2022 and 03 especially, the Russian advance, the ill-fated attempt to take Kyiv and subsume Ukraine into the – a Slavic federation led by Vladimir Putin. But it’s also important that we have competent Diplomats, that we think about conflict mitigation, we think about peace negotiations, because we know this war in Iran, whenever it ends, Generals won’t end it.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

It’ll be Foreign Ministry – Minister…

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…Araghchi and American Diplomats and European Diplomats and Arab Diplomats. I would expect Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris and others to be ho – centrally involved in this, this is their region.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

And so I was – when I first went to Harvard Kennedy School as a Professor, I was surprised to the extent that we had major parts of the school in terms of the faculty expertise focused on intelligence and the military, and very little on diplomacy. And that’s why I’m so glad you’re here at Chatham House…

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…because you’re a Diplomat, and I think for all of us, for the Europeans, Americans, Brits, Canadians, East Asian countries, we’ve got to – the diplomacy quotient has to be taken more seriously. We’re trying to train future Diplomats at Harvard, as I know, King’s College, Oxford, Cambridge are here, LSE, in the United Kingdom. And it’s a tough sell sometimes, especially in our country, when we have done – we’ve seen so much damage done to our foreign service in the last year.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

We’ve had about 3,000 of our Diplomats fired, their careers ended. We had 16 senior career Ambassadors in the field who were given 30 days’ notice at the beginning of January, “You’re out,” including our Ambassador in Egypt, Herro Mustafa, one of the great stars of our foreign service. And so right now, you’ve got a situation where most of the American Embassies in the war zone do not have an American Ambassador…

Laurel Rapp

Yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…because they were asked to leave. And so no matter what happens in our politics, whether it’s a Republican future or a Democratic Party future, I think a rational return to saying we should have a fully equipped and constituted American Foreign Service.

Laurel Rapp

Yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

We should have career Diplomats. We should have them at the peace talks. We should have had them at the talks three weeks ago tomorrow with Foreign Minister Araghchi, but they weren’t there because this administration doesn’t really value…

Laurel Rapp

Yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…that kind of career expertise. That really greatly worries me. You can’t be a one-dimensional power.

Laurel Rapp

I agree, yeah. A Diplomat asked that question, right?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Exactly, right.

Laurel Rapp

Do Diplomats matter?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

In violent agreement with you there.

Laurel Rapp

The last question is a question I get a lot here is, how much of this is just a Trump effect over the next couple of years, and how much of this is here to stay? And I’ll, kind of, narrow this question on China, and you’ve started to answer this question on the, kind of, bipartisan throughlines across the parties on China. As we look to the midterms, the US will host midterms in November. Foreign policy has featured much more prominently in this midterm than it has in past midterms…

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Yeah.

Laurel Rapp

…on questions of Iran, on questions of the Western Hemisphere and Venezuela. China, as well, is featuring in this midterm election in ways that we would not have seen in previous iterations. So, how are you thinking about the future of the US approach to China, the US-China policy, whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat, either in the midterms, and then after 2028?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

You know, I think that where bipartisanship has largely held, and I’ve been up on Capitol Hill the last couple of weeks – I live in Boston, Cambridge, Mass, but I go to Washington – there’s still a consensus. We’ve got to compete, we have to be true to our East Asian allies and to the EU and NATO as actors in this drama, ‘cause they’re very important actors.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

We’ve got to do that. We’ve got to co-operate where we can and live in peace, kind of, three parts of the policy. Most Republicans and Democrats still agree on that, and if there’s going to be a debate, it’ll be that President Trump may be trying to soften that policy in a way that would be injurious to our national security.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

So, I actually think whatever happens this November in our midterm elections or in 2028 in our presidential election, I think that American consensus is going to hold in a very rough, general way, and that will inform the next President, whoever that man or woman is, Republican or Democrat, and that’s because this is a structural…

Laurel Rapp

Yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…rivalry, and it’s long-term, into the 2030s, maybe the 2040s.

Laurel Rapp

Thank you, Nick.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Thank you.

Laurel Rapp

So, with that, I will open the floor to questions. Raise your hand, we will bring you a microphone. When you introduce yourself, your name and your affiliation, if you don’t mind. Let’s start here.

Fran Wang

Thank you. Fran Wang with Bloomberg News. Thanks, Ambassador. We just reported today that China’s military is studying the US war in Iran and learning lessons that could be used in its own conflict, possibly, in future. So, should the US be concerned that China is learning lessons? And what do you think the US should do to ensure that the US maintains sufficient military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific? Thank you.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Thank you very much. Well, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see China trying to observe what the US and Israel are doing militarily and learn from it. I think China has had the same intense focus on the battles in Ukraine over the last four years. It’s not surprising at all. I actually think – I talked about this first area of competition, the battle for military influence and power in the Indo-Pacific, I think it’s critically important for the United States and Japan and the Philippines to stay closely aligned militarily in the first island chain. If you think of fr – Japan down to Taiwan and the Philippines, and the second island chain, out to Guam, and that’s where Australia comes in, it’s where Britain comes in as a Pacific power, it’s where Germany conducting freedom of navigation exercises in the Taiwan Strait comes in.

I was saying to Laurel before we came on, what surprised me a little bit when I went out to China, I expected us to be working extremely closely with Japan and the Philippines on Taiwan scenarios, but the degree to which Britain and the European Union were fundamentally involved in working with Japan, with the Philippines, with Australia, with the United States, on Taiwan issues, on South China Sea issues, on human rights issues in China, and it was a very powerful combination. In fact, I think the Chinese were really surprised by the fact that NATO and the EU both had a policy that was largely congruent with that of Japan, the United States and the other countries, and I hope we don’t lose that.

And it’s – this is not a warlike combination. All of us want to live in peace with China, but we recognise that if China gets away with effective control well beyond their sovereign territory in the Spratlys, Paracels, Senkakus and Yellow Sea, that’s a different world. And if China is allowed by force, in essence, to take over Taiwan, what will that lead to? It’ll lead the Koreans and Japanese to think about having their own nuclear weapons capability in the future. So, we want to avoid all that. And I think keeping Europe engaged with the US and the Asian allies is really critical. That’s not in the Chinese interest, that’s – but that’s keeping China off balance. So, that’s one way I’d answer your very good question.

And it means, I think, in terms of our own defence budgets and defence orientation, we’ve been – Americans have been saying for a good 20 years now, “We need to get out of the Middle East in terms of war fighting and position ourselves in the Indo-Pacific.” Four of the five largest economies in the world are on that map. The only non-Indo-Pacific country on the map is the European Union economy. And I would say maybe the four strongest militaries in the world right now, or four of the strongest, are the US, China, Japan and India in the Indo-Pacific. So, in a way, it’s the power map of the world, of the future.

It doesn’t mean we won’t be Atlantic oriented. I come from Boston, we’re an Atlantic city, and we have a lot of trade and these critical NATO alliances with the UK and with Europe, but increasingly, even Europe has to be more Indo-Pacific focused, and we had that. And what has bothered me about the Trump policy on Greenland, which has been roundly repudiated publicly and by our Congress…

Laurel Rapp

And unsuccessful.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

And unsuccessful, so far, thank goodness.

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

The Trump policy contesting Canadian sovereignty is completely unthinkable and preposterous. The criticism of the British Prime Minister, which I think is completely unwarranted. You know, countries have a right to choose what they want to do in a situation like war. We need to keep the alliance together, not fracture the alliance, and so, I think that’s what worries me most about our East Asia policy.

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Can we understand that when you have allies, they have a right to speak up, they have a right to disagree? We don’t always like that, and they have a right to be in on the take-off if you want them to be in the end of the war. And those lessons learnt over the course of the last 80 years, how do we manage this big alliance that we have? They’re very important for the American people to remember. I think the American people do remember. I just hope the administration will turn back in that direction. So, thank you for your question.

Laurel Rapp

Back left, in the blue.

Camilla

Good afternoon, Ambassador. My name is Camilla, I’m a recent graduate from the Centre of International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS here in London.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Okay.

Camilla

And my question is about China’s, sort of, non-interventionism policy when it comes to areas outside of its sphere of influence. So, you were mentioning how in Venezuela, in the case of Iran, you were, sort of, surprised that China chose to not intervene, but it seems to me like that’s been their policy all along. And my – so my question is, at what point do you think they’d break from that, in your experience, and what would really prompt China to intervene?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Thank you. Were you East Asia focused at SOAS in your studies?

Camilla

Yes, Taiwan.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

What was your – Mandarin, Japanese, what was your language?

Camilla

Well, I didn’t do a language, but I do speak a bit of Mandarin.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Right.

Camilla

Yes.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

You know, I didn’t mean to infer, and I apologise if I – it sounded like this, that I expected Chinese – China to intervene militarily in either Venezuela or Iran. That was never in the cards. I expected – I assumed China would make a big – have a stronger voice, and I was surprised they didn’t, for this reason. I was in Beijing for the last four years, and in 2023, when Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, presided over the ceremonial handshake between the Saudi and Iranian Foreign Ministers, the Chinese were, kind of, crowing about this to the likes of me and other Ambassadors in Beijing, “It’s a new day, we are now, China, a major power in the Middle East. It’s not just you guys anymore. Make room for us.” And they said that publicly, and when October 7th 2023 came, they really disappeared.

When the Pa – they gave very little money to the Palestinian people, you know, the terrible afflictions of the Palestinian people, two million Gazans homeless. It required countries to give a lot of humanitarian aid, to work with the UN and others. The Chinese did very little of that. They were almost silent. They weren’t a strong voice, at all, when I tried to get them to help us with the Houthi rebels when they shut down shipping in the Red Sea, and they have not really spoken up and been a factor, at all. That’s what surprised me. I did not believe that China would ever intervene militarily. They really don’t have the capacity to do that right now, given where the PLA is focused, which as you said correctly, first and second island chains in what the Chinese consider their sphere of influence. So, that would be the distinction I’d make, and…

Laurel Rapp

But they have sent a mediator. China has offered to mediate this.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

They have.

Laurel Rapp

…and there may be things we’re seeing below the surface that have not been public.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

You know, I – it’s going to be very interesting and very important to see how this war comes to an end, because it’s going to be diplomacy that does it. And I would think that the Arab Gulf states have to be centrally involved here, given the geography, given how exposed they are economically, and in terms of their own national security. The US, obviously, Israel will have to be involved, but, you know, as we – when we game this out in my own career over four decades, we always said to each other, you know, “The enemy has a vote too.” You know the day you start a war, you know the hour you start a war, but you can never know, once the war starts, how it’s going to end, where it’s going to end, who’s going to be at the negotiating table. I would say on this one, maybe it wouldn’t be surprising to see some Chinese investment involvement, but I think it’s going to be Arab-focused, obviously Iranian-focused, US, Israel. I would hope Europe…

Laurel Rapp

Hmmm hmm.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…would be involved. In fact, you know, we – it would have been better to have had Europe more centrally involved in these Iran nuclear negotiations. When we formed the P5+1 back in 2005, it was formed here in London, and the person who did it was the British Foreign Minister, Jack Straw. John Sawers was Political Director; I was the American Political Director. We had Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia, and China, one group, trying to negotiate with the Iranians. That was a 20-year negotiation between 2005 – 21, and 2026. And I think that European voice is very important for the diplomacy. I hope that the US makes some room for Britain…

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…and the EU countries.

Laurel Rapp

Yes. Just here, sir.

Jamil Gursam

[Pause] I’m Jamil Gursam, a member of Chatham House. Ambassador, the question, I have two, but I would be only asking one, in relation…

Laurel Rapp

Thank you, one only, one…

Jamil Gursam

I know the rules.

Laurel Rapp

…per customer, yes.

Jamil Gursam

Now, the question, actually, I’m not sure whether to ask about Iran, or as you mentioned in your speech, in relation to South Korea and Japan, should China attack Taiwan for their actually intention to create nuclear weapons for China – against China, the South Korea and Japan? Will America respond the same way it responded to Iran’s action to create nuclear bomb which doesn’t exist?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

So, when I was in government, at one point 30 years ago, I was the State Department spokesperson, so I had to give press conferences, and I learnt a valuable lesson, never answer a hypothetical question, ‘cause it only gets you into trouble. But you’ve asked a really compelling question, and I think what I take from your question is really important for the United States, and Japan and South Korea. Is the United States in our treaty alliances, which are now, you know, more than 70 years old, with Japan and South Korea, we provide the nuclear weapons security for both countries. It wou – we thought it would be destabilising in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s for either of those two countries to be nuclear weapons powers. And the United States needs to maintain those alliances and our commitments to both of those countries so that they won’t have an incentive, will not have an incentive, to develop nuclear weapons on their own.

What I said in my remarks is, in the scenario, which is hypothetical, so I violated my own rule, where the United States does not meet its defence commitments to Taiwan, let’s say China succeeded, I think that would unleash a lot of strategic thinking on the part of the Japanese and the South Koreans. And so, maintaining a close US alliance with them, absolutely critical, and I think especially Japan, such an important ally. I’ve been very impressed by the new Japanese Prime Minister. She’s been courageous on the subject of China, and she deserves full American support for that. So, that’s how I’d answer your really good question.

Laurel Rapp

Let’s go to the middle here in the white shirt, please.

Clayton

Hi there, Ambassador. My name’s Clayton. I’m a junior or third year at Northwestern University studying Slavic studies and international studies. So, the topic of China, especially when it comes up with their relations to Russia and therefore with the United States, comes up quite often.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Yeah.

Clayton

You said at the very beginning that the relation with China’s expansion and their massive 1.2 trillion trade surplus, and you have said that something that we’ve been – the US has been focused on is halting the competition and the massive expansion, especially militarily. But what do you say then to their massive amount of control over primary goods, especially in Africa, where they go in with a lot of humanitarian aid and they control all of that? How do you see the world going back to not allowing them to have that much soft power, not just militarily?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Thank you very much. Really good question. I’d just say two things quickly. First of all, I think all of us, but I mean all of us, Europe, UK, certainly India, Japan, South Korea, the US, have had the same problem economically with China. Still intellectual property rights at an Olympian scale – violations, excuse me, of our countries in the Chinese market. Still forced technology transfer by the government of China to individual companies in the Chinese market, “If you want to stay, you’ve got to give us your technology.”

China, so much sup – financial support to Chinese companies that they can push their manufactured exports out below the cost of production, EVs in Europe is a very good example of that, which forced the EU to exact tariffs. Joe Biden put 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, 50% lithium batteries, 25% semiconductors. So, you’ve seen that from India, from South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United States, this big reaction to this flood of manufactured exports. China, you know, has this great manufacturing economy, but they’ve got to – we, the rest of the world, has to work with the Chinese, pressure them to play by the rules. That would be the – my most important way of answering your question.

Second point quickly. For all the problems with the Belt and Road Initiative, and there are many, and I have been in my gov – my previous government has been a big critic of the Belt and Road Initiative on the indebtedness that it has brought about in countries like Sri Lanka and Zambia. It’s been a tremendous tool for China in gaining influence in South Asia, in Southeast Asia, in the Pacific Islands, in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Latin America, particularly South America, and the United States and the European Union and the UK and Japan have not come up with anything commensurate.

So, the Chinese are out there, they have a dominant position in global trade, they have political influence in many of these countries because of the aid, and we have not – and we’ve tried. The EU, Japan, the United States said in the last four or five years, “We want to develop something that’s commensurate, but that would not lead to indebtedness,” and we failed to do it. So, I think the democratic countries of the world have to un – have to get together and try again to offer something that is a competition to the Belt and Road Initiative. And in the case of the United States, you know, we’ve really handicapped ourselves by dismantling the Voice of America, dismantling Radio Free Asia, completely abolishing the US Agency for International Development. Laurel and I worked closely with USAID from our different perches…

Laurel Rapp

Yeah.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

…in the Biden administration. Imagine if DFID disappeared as an arm of British diplomacy, you cannot imagine it. It’s happened in our country, and so we are – you know, we’re now competing with the Chinese with one or even both hands tied behind our back. So, I would hope that there’d be a renaissance in American foreign policy to say we’ve got to be more involved in development aid, healthcare around the world, and we have to tell our story through institutions. I mean, the BBC is a great asset, frankly, for all of the democratic world, but particularly Britain. We don’t have a BBC in the United States, we abolished our BBC. So, I think we’ve got a lot of soul searching to do as to how to properly compete with China.

Laurel Rapp

Let’s go back – to the back, sir, and then, David, I’ll come to you.

Bernard O’Brien

Thank you. Bernard O’Brien, a student at King’s College doing a Master’s on Russia and China. If you wouldn’t mind just talking about Russia and China’s relationship, they’ve got a no-limits friendship declaration two or three years ago.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Yeah.

Bernard O’Brien

Do you think it’s becoming a relationship of an alliance or a strategic convergence, or is it just tactically convenient for trade and other things?

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Well, it’s a really – Professor, thank you, it’s a really important question. There are some people in my country who’ve speculated, we’ve even seen it in the last couple of days, could the United States, by growing closer to Russia, peel Russia away from China? As long as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are in power, they’re both 72 – I can say this ‘cause I turned 70 this year, so I’m allowed to comment on this, it’s not ageism. They’re both just approaching their 73rd birthdays, they are both Presidents for life. I think there’s no question President Xi is going to get a fourth four year – five-year term at the 2027 Congress in Beijing, and they both have big ambitions. Putin wants to subsu – destroy the Ukrainian nation, state and subsume it. President Xi clearly wants to have Taiwan come back into mainland control, which actually, as you know, hasn’t happened since 1895, when the Qing dynasty lost Taiwan to the Japanese.

This is a – I think they’ve now met, the two leaders, 55 times. Neither of them is exceedingly sentimental or outwardly emotional, and yet they both said, “My best friend in the world is” the other guy. It is not a formal alliance like the alliance that we have with the United Kingdom, which is so precious to the United States, I felt compelled to say that today when I came here, but think of what they’re doing together. Russia is one of the dominant Arctic countries. China is – they call itself a nea – or a near Arctic power, and they’re beginning to coalesce militarily as we think about a melting of the ice cap and what that means for the energy flows and transportation flows. They have engaged in aerial manoeuvres off the coast of Alaska. They’ve done that around the island of Japan, in fact, they’ve circumnavigated it, air and – their aviation together. They’re clearly working together in Ukraine, and Russia is an unstinting supporter of China and its ambitions on Taiwan.

It’s a real partnership, and therefore, we want to live in peace with both countries, but we’ve got to compete militarily with both, and that gets back to some of the other points that I made before. I think there’s a – as long as these two individuals are running their countries, I can’t see a prospect where they’re not closely engaged strategically, and their ambition, along with North Korea and Iran, is to undercut Japan, South Korea, divide the United States from those two countries and certainly undercut the EU and NATO and the United Kingdom, and undermine the power of the European countries and the United Kingdom, and I should add Canada in that mix. So, this is a really, really important competition, and we should be clear about the strategic ambitions of Putin and Xi Jinping.

Laurel Rapp

We’ll take our last question. David.

David Lubin

Thank you. I’m David Lubin. I’m an Economist here at Chatham House. You mentioned China playing by trade rules, but in a way there’s something behind that which is China’s economic model, which prioritises supply over demand, it prioritises exports over imports, and in a way, pretty much the only thing the US, the EU and countries in the Global South can agree on is that China should import more and export less. And I wonder what you think it would take to achieve some degree of co-ordination internationally in order to, kind of, put pressure on Beijing to reconsider its economic model.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

That is such an important question, David, and you will know more about it than me, given what you’re doing here at Chatham House. There are – you’ve seen the same – maybe you’ve made the same predictions, the predictions that I read from many Economists that China might become, as I said before, 40% of global manufacturing in the next five to six/seven years. I don’t think that’s sustainable for a fair global trading system. And most of the economic advice that I’ve seen given to the Government of China by outsiders is, build a consumption economy and diminish a bit the priority on an export-led manufacturing economy.

And Xi Jinping has clearly rejected the advice to build a consumption economy. If you look at the last week when they met and agreed on the new five-year plan, it’s all about ramping up production, particularly in the advanced technologies, and subsidising the export, as I said before, below the cost of production. And so when we put – when Joe Biden put tariffs on China in May of 2024, the ones that I just articulated, who else was doing the same thing? Turkey was, India was. I mentioned South Africa, close ally of China, tariffs against Chinese, Brazil, Peru, close allies, Mexico, Canada, US, EU.

So, the whole world has reacted, but the Chinese essentially believe the way to growth is through the new technologies. And they’ve made dramatic investments in AI, quantum, biotech, as you well know, as well as the whole supply chain of autom – electric vehicles, from the batteries to everything else, and there’s really no talking Xi Jinping out of that. He’s been very consistent in resisting this advice. So, I think we are going to have to live with this and react to it. And it means that for the big global economies, like the United States, we have to be thinking of having allies and partners to be with us and pull on the same oar. Difficult to do this if Greenland is part of your agenda, or contesting Canadian sovereignty is part of it. You know, you’ve got to resist all those impulses so that the allies have a reason to be with us on these big questions. So, that’s how I’d answer your very good question.

Laurel Rapp

I’m afraid we’ve run out of time for any more questions, and apologies to those online we weren’t able to get to, but we did cover many of them in the conversation. Please join me in thanking Ambassador Nick Burns for being with us today [applause].

Ambassador Nicholas Burns

Thank you.

Laurel Rapp

[Applause] And we – this conversation is just one of many we are having at Chatham House, across Chatham House, with the US and North America Programme on those enduring features of US foreign policy over time. So, if this remains an interest area of yours, if you’d like to get more involved, we would be very happy to continue this conversation with you, as well. Thanks for joining us today [applause]. Thank you.