This former Ambassador with NATO had been appointed in August by Joe Biden. Its designation ends more than one year of diplomatic vacancy in Beijing.
Le Monde with AFP
The American Senate confirmed, Thursday, December 16, the nomination of Nicholas Burns as the US ambassador to China, ending more than one year of diplomatic vacancy in Beijing.
Joe Biden had appointed him as ear as in August, but it was only Thursday that a majority came to confirm this experienced diplomat, after the withdrawal by Senator Republican Marco Rubio from his opposition to this Nomination.
Former Ambassador in Greece and NATO, number three of the State Department under the chairmanship of George W. Bush, Nicholas Burns qualified, during his hearing before the Senate in October, China “Aggressor “In the region and promised a” quick confrontation “with Beijing, however, adding that he hoped to cooperate on topics such as climate change.
A former John Kerry advisor
His appointment was blocked since August by Marco Rubio, who accused him of not being hard with Chinese diplomacy. The senator finally left the vote – by pronouncing anyway against confirmation – after the vote Thursday by the Senate, unanimously, of a law prohibiting the importation into the United States of a wide range of of products manufactured in the Xinjiang, Chinese region where Washington is about human rights violations towards the Uygun minority.
Democrats, as well as some Republicans, argued that after more than a year without ambassador, the United States needed a senior representative in Beijing to enforce this new law.
Career diplomat, Nicholas Burns also advised between 2014 and 2017 the Secretary of State John Kerry, taught Harvard and had strongly criticized Donald Trump’s foreign policy. His predecessor in Pékin, Terry Bransted, had resigned in September 2020, in the middle of the presidential campaign in the United States.