US Senate approves Biden nominee Nicholas Burns as China envoy

The US Senate on Thursday voted to back the nomination of long-time American diplomat Nicholas Burns to be the US ambassador to China, ending 11-month wrangling over the key nomination.

The Senate voted 75 to 18 to confirm Burns, a former US ambassador to NATO who served as Under Secretary of State between 2005 and 2008, as the next US envoy to Beijing.

“If there’s a place that we need an ambassador, it’s China,” Senator Bob Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, said ahead of the vote.

“We’ve spent so much time, both in committee [and] on the floor, hearing about the challenges of China, but we don’t have a US ambassador to help us meet those challenges.”

Biden's choice of Burns, who has served in senior diplomatic positions under both Democratic and Republican administrations, marks a shift as the position was previously filled by former politicians.

The nomination of Burns comes amid increasingly fractious relations between the world’s two biggest economies who have been at odds over a range of issues in recent years.

It was not immediately known when Burns will formally assume the role, and whether it would be before the 2022 Winter Olympics in China or after that.

The White House on December 7 announced “diplomatic boycott” of the marquee sports event to be hosted by China, over alleged human rights "atrocities”, which means no government officials will attend it, even though athletes from the US will compete.

US President Joe Biden had in August announced Burns as the country's nominee for ambassador to China even as tensions between the two rivals escalated.

Burns, a Foreign Service veteran, currently serves as Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

ME