America’s rivalry with China will intensify, but must not escalate into war, writes Nicholas Burns

After three turbulent years as America’s ambassador to China, I’ve returned home reflecting on lessons that will be crucial for the future of relations between these countries—and for peace in Asia.

First, America and China will be competing for power and influence into the next decade and probably beyond—and too many Americans in both parties underappreciate the fierceness of this struggle. The contest will play out in military, technological and economic terms, as well as over profound issues of freedom. China and America have the world’s two largest economies and strongest armed forces; their competition for power will know few boundaries.

President Xi Jinping is the strongest, most lethal adversary we’ve faced. Under his rule China seeks to unseat American leadership in the Asia-Pacific, become the region’s paramount power and shape a global order to its liking.

The competition between our two armed forces will be especially acute. In the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, American and Chinese forces are deployed in close juxtaposition—a modern, maritime version of the Great Game. The sharp build-up of the People’s Liberation Army, cyber-assaults on the West and ambitions in space-based warfare are all threats to peace. In America a strong, continuing bipartisan consensus is imperative for stopping China from overhauling us militarily.

During my time in Beijing, competition for technology supremacy moved to centre stage. It will be at its most intense in AI, as DeepSeek’s sudden entry into the AI race suggests. Meanwhile, our trade relationship will be increasingly difficult to manage. America’s third-largest trade partner is China, and China’s largest export market is America. Yet both sides are cutting their supply-chain dependency on the other in advanced semiconductors, critical minerals and more. China’s aggressive dumping of excess manufacturing led then-President Joe Biden rightly to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, semiconductors and lithium batteries. Now President Donald Trump is implementing tariffs of his own. Both presidents have been serious about levelling the trade relationship for American firms.

China and America are also waging a bitter battle of ideas. China defends authoritarianism, whereas America, at least until now, has championed democracy and the rule of law. This battle, which includes what those two systems deliver in practical terms, could play out for years.

Here, moves by the Trump administration are concerning. The administration’s evisceration of USAID and its vital work in global health and development is a major mistake that will cripple America in our competition with China, including our efforts to match the appeal to developing countries of its Belt and Road Initiative. The firing of 10,000 USAID professionals is deeply wrong. It is shameful how the administration has mistreated dedicated public servants and made wild, unsubstantiated charges against them.

A second lesson from my time in Beijing is: be good to your allies. They are force multipliers in countering China. One of Mr Biden’s signature successes was to strengthen America’s position in the Indo-Pacific by reinforcing our military alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia, as well as deepening our partnership with India. This group and our allies in Europe must continue to work together to limit China’s aggressive ambitions, above all in the Indo-Pacific.

It should not be necessary to remind American leaders to treat allies respectfully, resolve inevitable differences quietly and, above all (it is extraordinary that this even needs stating), refrain from challenging their sovereignty and territorial integrity. No modern president has broken these precepts—until Mr Trump. Now that talks to end Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine are set to begin, the administration must fully involve our NATO allies rather than negotiate over their heads and that of the victim, Ukraine. We will surely need them to keep the pressure on the aggressor, Vladimir Putin. An outcome favouring Russia will embolden China to think it too can get away with aggression in its neighbourhood, including towards Taiwan.

A third lesson is age-old: foreign policy begins at home. Too many Republican and Democratic leaders underestimate China’s accelerating industrial and technological power. America must match it by modernising its infrastructure. Mr Biden pushed Congress to pass historic bills covering infrastructure, semiconductors and renewable energy. I hope the Trump administration will not abandon these efforts—that would weaken our ability to compete with China.

Yet for all the fierceness of the contest, a fourth lesson is crucial. Competition must not dominate the whole relationship, or open conflict might ensue. American and Chinese leaders must commit to managing their differences and work together when interests align.

We learned this the hard way in 2022 from the regime’s angry reaction to the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, to Taiwan, and from the crisis sparked by China’s sending a mysterious balloon over North America in early 2023. China was clearly at fault in both yet it peevishly shut down senior-level contacts. It was a dangerous time. I worried whether both sides could handle a true crisis and, lacking good channels of communication, avoid a needless conflict.

Our concerns led us in the spring of 2023 to propose a revival of meetings between senior cabinet secretaries and their Chinese counterparts. Later that year Presidents Biden and Xi held a productive summit in California. Though unable to resolve many differences, we initiated progress in important areas. At Mr Biden’s final meeting with Mr Xi in Lima in November, the leaders agreed that humans, not AI systems, must control the use of nuclear weapons. They called for regular meetings between top American and Chinese military leaders to be resumed, following years of scant contact. And they agreed to work harder together to deal with the fentanyl crisis and with climate change. Soon after, we secured the release from Chinese jails of wrongfully detained Americans and co-operated in the search for the remains of more than 700 American servicemen missing in action in China during the 20th century’s wars.

As the Trump administration starts work with a recalcitrant China, avoiding a decoupling of our two societies will be important. Ties between the two peoples can help stabilise an uneasy relationship. Only one state governor and a single congressional delegation have visited China in the past five years. Tourism and business travel have fallen sharply, while American students in China have fallen from 15,000 a decade ago to just over 1,100 today. Hindering contacts between ordinary Chinese and Americans will only deepen the mutual distrust.

The supreme test that Mr Trump and Mr Xi face is to manage intense competition between their countries while avoiding a war neither side wants. As my Biden administration colleagues and I pass the baton to President Trump’s team, I hope they will strengthen America for the competition as we did. At the same time, may they and the Chinese authorities find a way to remain at peace, despite our differences. It is the only sane outcome in our challenging, contentious and complex relationship in the years ahead.

Nicholas Burns, a veteran diplomat and international-relations scholar, was America’s ambassador to China between 2021 and 2025.

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