Xie Feng lands as ambassador to US
Foreign vice-minister Xie Feng confirmed he has been appointed as the new Chinese ambassador to Washington, pledging to enhance exchanges with the US in what he called an “important mission”.
“I am the representative of China so I have come here to safeguard China’s interests. This is my sacred responsibility,” Xie said on Tuesday after landing in New York, adding that relations between the two powers faced “serious difficulties and challenges”.
“We hope that the United States will move in the same direction with China. We hope that the United States will work together with China to increase dialogue, to manage differences and also to expand our cooperation so that our relationship will be back on the right track,” he said.
Asked about Xie’s new role, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning yesterday said the ambassador would be an “important bridge and link for communication and cooperation” between China and the US.
She said US-China ties were of great significance to the world and called on Washington to “meet China halfway” and manage their differences.
Earlier, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US welcomed Xie’s arrival and that it remained committed to maintaining channels of communication with China.
Xie, who oversaw the US portfolio in Beijing, had in recent months been flagged as the top candidate for the position, which has been vacant for almost five months. One of the early signs he would take up the job was the role he played in meeting American executives in Beijing in March.
Politico this week reported that Xie would arrive in Washington as early as Tuesday.
Xie’s appointment comes at a time of deep distrust and heightened strategic competition between the US and China.
Ties between the two superpowers declined considerably after then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year. Relations hit new lows when the US shot down what it said was a Chinese spy balloon in February.
Analysts have suggested that Beijing’s next ambassador to the US would be confronted with a list of challenges, including navigating strained relations.
But there have been signs that things could be looking up as earlier this month China’s top diplomat Wang Yi met US national security adviser Jake Sullivan – the highest-level dialogue between the two countries since the balloon episode.
Observers said at the time that the meeting could help pave the way for further top-tier engagements.
US President Joe Biden hinted on Sunday after the Group of Seven summit in Japan that ties between the two world powers may “begin to thaw very shortly”.
But his comments were met with a tepid response from China, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao urging the US to lift sanctions and take “concrete actions” to create a “favourable atmosphere and conditions” for dialogue.
“We urge the US to form a correct perception of China, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and harming China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, and work with China to bring China-US relations back to the right track with concrete actions,” she said.
Xie, a seasoned diplomat with extensive US contacts and experience, was formerly China’s ambassador to Indonesia.
Much of Xie’s career has been focused on the US. He was the second-ranking diplomat at the Chinese embassy in Washington in 2008, and the director general of the department of North America and Oceania in 2010.
More recently, he was the foreign ministry commissioner in Hong Kong from 2017 to early 2021, during which he labelled Hong Kong’s protest movement as an independence campaign seeking to overthrow the government.
The Chinese embassy in Washington has in the past months been run by Xu Xueyuan, the charge d’affaires, since Qin Gang left to become China’s foreign minister in January.
Wang Yiwei, an international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said the decision to appoint a new ambassador to Washington was a show of compromise on China’s part.
He suggested recent developments – including Biden’s comments at the G7 summit – indicated some sort of “weakening” of tensions between the two countries.
China recognised the need to “appropriately reduce” the intensity of its confrontations with the US. “Otherwise, other countries will take advantage of the opportunity and make trouble in China,” he said.