TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
New US ambassador Nicholas Burns arrives in China
The United States has been without an ambassador in Beijing since Terry Branstad stepped down in October 2020.
Change Size
Nicholas Burns testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be Ambassador to China, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on October 20, 2021. (AFP/Mandel Ngan)
T
he new US ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, has arrived in the country and will be in quarantine for three weeks, the US embassy said in a tweet on Saturday.
The United States has been without an ambassador in Beijing since Terry Branstad stepped down in October 2020.
Burns, a veteran diplomat and former US ambassador to NATO, arrives at a time when relations between the world's two biggest economies are at their worst in decades.
Recent points of friction include the US-led diplomatic boycott of last month's Beijing Winter Olympics, and China's diplomatic backing of Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.
The embassy tweet said Burns' travel plans had been delayed due to the pandemic and that a group of US mission personnel and their families travelled with him.
President Joe Biden's nomination of Burns for the post was approved by the US Senate on Dec 16.
