How stable is the US-China relationship, really? It felt like frosty relations might finally be thawing after a meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco last November. However, there’s still a lot of daylight and no trust between the two. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with US Ambassador to China Nick Burns for a frank conversation about how US-China has changed since Biden took office, what the two countries agree on, and where they’re still miles apart.
“This is largely a competitive relationship,” Burns tells Bremmer. It’ll likely be a systemic rivalry well into the 2030s between the two largest economies in the world and the two strongest militaries in the world, so what happens here is very consequential.”
Burns doesn’t see a major shift in the status quo any time soon, with the US and China competing for military superiority, security in the Indo-Pacific, and trade and investment well into the next decade. But he also points to the $575 billion two-way trade relationship between the two countries, explaining why the US doesn’t favor a total decoupling of their economies. Later, Burns and Bremmer discuss challenges surrounding Taiwan, aggression in the South China Sea, Congress’s proposed TikTok ban, and the risk for American companies in the People’s Republic as Beijing continues to prioritize national security.Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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