Ambassador Defends New Requirement That China's Diplomats Report Meetings In U.S.

By EMILY FENG

U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad, left, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, right, after concluding a meeting in Beijing, in May.

The U.S. ambassador to China is pushing back against Beijing's criticism of a new State Department requirement that Chinese diplomats must report certain meetings they have in the U.S.
The State Department announced Wednesday that it is requiring all Chinese diplomats in the U.S. to notify them of meetings they plan to have with local and state officials as well as educational and research institutions. 

However, there is no penalty associated yet with failing to report such meetings.
Speaking in Beijing, U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad, a former governor of Iowa, told NPR that the reporting requirements were "modest" compared to how China demands all foreign diplomats ask for the Chinese government's permission before traveling or meeting with local officials and universities in an official capacity.
"The difference is we have a very open system. Unfortunately, China has a very closed system," Branstad said. 

"We'd like to see a little more reciprocity and more opportunity for our diplomats to be able to do their work here in China."
The measure is meant as a counter to the more intensive barriers American diplomats face in China. Diplomats have long complained about limited access to local officials; academics and researchers say they have been restricted; and requests to visit politically sensitive areas in China, especially the western regions of Tibet and East Turkestan, are routinely ignored or denied.
In the past year, U.S. legislation was enacted to monitor American access to Tibet and potentially sanction Chinese officials who block U.S. officials and journalists who travel there. 

China requires foreigners to receive a special permit before entering the region of Tibet, though few are granted to diplomats and journalists.
Earlier this month, a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation was denied visas to mainland China because the group also planned to visit Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province.

China's ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, tweeted his opposition to the State Department requirements.
Branstad called Cui's reaction on Twitter "outrageous."
"One of the real ironies is that the Chinese ambassador in the United States can use Google Facebook and Twitter, and those [platforms] are all banned here in China," he told NPR. 

China's Great Firewall monitors all incoming Internet traffic entering mainland China and blocks access to many international social media sites and news outlets.
Branstad also noted the growing ability of Chinese regulators and an increasingly nationalistic consumer base to restrict the free expression of American companies and individuals, saying such interference was of "grave concern."
Earlier this month, the general manager of the NBA's Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, tweeted in support of ongoing anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
China's state broadcaster and the tech giant Tencent quickly dropped coverage of NBA preseason games, though Tencent quietly began streaming games again last week. 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver alleged in public remarks Thursday that China asked him to fire Morey over his pro-Hong Kong tweet, a request Silver refused. 

"We're a country that believes very much in freedom of speech and association and [we] believe that this is really counterproductive," Branstad said.

Coalition of the Willing

U.S. ambassador to Europe: Let’s take on China together
By Adam Taylor

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, center, in Brussels in July. 

The U.S. ambassador to the European Union is offering a message to a continent that is frequently at odds with his boss: Let’s get over our problems so that we can take on China together.
Gordon Sondland, who was sworn in as ambassador in late June, told a group of reporters in Brussels that once the United States had an appropriate trade deal with Europe, they could form a unified front to take on China.
“The jackpot is having what is about $40 trillion combined GDP working as a bloc in terms of dealing with Chinese growth, Chinese theft of intellectual property, Chinese malign activity, Chinese militarization in South China Sea and all the other things we’ve been calling out to China to stop doing,” Sondland said, according to Euractiv.
“The sooner we conclude our business, the sooner we can both turn to the real opportunity, which is to deal with China and make China act like a good global citizen in the business world and otherwise,” he said.
The United States could help European governments by giving them access to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a mechanism that can help screen investors, Sondland told the reporters. 

“You don’t want to sell a business to someone that you think is a Dane, or an American, or a Greek, then find out it’s Chinese money or control behind it,” he said.
The ambassador’s message came the same week that Vice President Pence accused Beijing of using trade policies to try to undermine U.S. leadership. 

“By one estimate, more than 80 percent of U.S. counties targeted by China voted for President Trump in 2016; now China wants to turn these voters against our administration,” Pence said in a speech at the Hudson Institute on Thursday.
Sondland has personal ties to Europe as his parents fled Nazi Germany during World War II. 

Though he distanced himself from Trump during the 2016 presidential election campaign, Sondland, the founder of a chain of boutique hotels, was later reported to have donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee.
It’s a difficult time in transatlantic relations. 

European leaders are often at odds with Trump, who has spoken disparagingly of the E.U. as an institution and has taken policy actions, such as pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, that prominent leaders, such as Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron, oppose.
A recent Pew poll of global views of the United States found a high level of skepticism about Trump among the European public. 

In France, Germany and Spain, confidence in Trump’s ability to properly handle global affairs was lower than 10 percent, and sizable majorities in many European nations surveyed said that the United States did not consider their interests when considering policy.
However, the same poll found that in most European countries surveyed, majorities said they would prefer the United States to be a the leader global power, as opposed to China, suggesting a window of opportunity that Sondland could exploit.
The United States is seeking a new trade deal with the E.U. after pulling out of talks for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership last year, with some reports suggesting that the early stages of a deal may be worked out before the end of the year. 

Sondland told reporters in Brussels that “the president is expecting” significant progress on a deal by November or December, Euractiv reported.
The Trump administration has had some success on trade deals recently, revising an agreement with South Korea and reaching a new pact with Mexico and Canada. 

Some experts have suggested that the administration is focusing its efforts on China, which it sees as a bigger problem. 

One notable clause in the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement allows signatories to pull out if one country seeks a separate free trade agreement with a “nonmarket country” — widely interpreted as a warning against a side deal with China.
“We cannot talk about trade without talking about China,” Sondland wrote in an article for Politico Europe last month. 

“We all share an interest in seeing China offer greater market access and eliminate unfair trade practices, and together we can insist China take the necessary steps to allow its economy to operate more fairly.”

Beijing bully

U.S. ambassador accuses China of bullying with propaganda ads

By Tony Munroe

U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad speaks to the media in front of his residence in Beijing, China June 28, 2017. 

BEIJING -- A week after an official Chinese newspaper ran a four-page ad in a U.S. daily touting the mutual benefits of U.S.-China trade, the U.S. ambassador to China accused Beijing of using the American press to spread propaganda.
U.S. President Donald Trump last Wednesday referred to the China Daily’s paid supplement in the Des Moines Register -- the state of Iowa’s biggest selling newspaper -- after accusing China of seeking to meddle in the Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections.
President Trump’s accusation that Beijing was trying to meddle in U.S. elections marked what U.S. officials told Reuters was a new phase in an escalating campaign by Washington to put pressure on China.
Beijing and Washington are currently locked in an escalating trade war that has seen them level rounds of tariffs on each other’s imports.
China’s retaliatory tariffs early in the trade war were designed to hit exporters in states such as Iowa that supported President Trump’s Republican Party, Chinese and U.S. experts have said.

Terry Branstad, the U.S. ambassador to China and the former longtime governor of Iowa, a major exporter of agricultural goods to China, said Beijing had hurt American workers, farmers and businesses.
China, Branstad wrote in an opinion piece in Sunday’s Des Moines Register, “is now doubling down on that bullying by running propaganda ads in our own free press.”
“In disseminating its propaganda, China’s government is availing itself of America’s cherished tradition of free speech and a free press by placing a paid advertisement in the Des Moines Register,” Branstad wrote.
“In contrast, at the newsstand down the street here in Beijing, you will find limited dissenting voices and will not see any true reflection of the disparate opinions that the Chinese people may have on China’s troubling economic trajectory, given that media is under the firm thumb of the Chinese Communist Party,” he wrote.
He added that “one of China’s most prominent newspapers dodged the offer to publish” his article, although he did not say which newspaper.