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Donald Trump has selected former senator David Perdue to serve as the US ambassador to China amid escalating military and trade tensions.
The president-elect said the former senator from Georgia “brings valuable expertise to help build our relationship with China”.
Mr Perdue, who lived in Hong Kong during a 40-year career as a business executive, will be “instrumental in implementing my strategy to maintain peace in the region and a productive working relationship with China’s leaders”, Mr Trump added.
In his time as senator from 2015 to 2021, Mr Perdue advocated for the US to build a more robust naval force to cope with foreign threats and was labeled “anti-China” in a 2019 Chinese think tank.
His nomination came days after Mr Trump threatened to impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese goods unless the Asian giant did more to stop the alleged trafficking of the narcotic fentanyl. He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 per cent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington responded that Beijing believed trade and economic cooperation between the two nations was mutually beneficial. “No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” the spokesperson added.
Mr Perdue, if confirmed, will have to negotiate a difficult set of issues that goes beyond trade. His nomination marks a return to the practice over recent decades of sending former politicians to the US embassy in Beijing, after outgoing president Joe Biden tapped veteran career diplomat Nicholas Burns in 2021.
Mr Trump has picked China hardliners for other senior positions in his administration, including senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, in a signal that his policy towards America’s main strategic rival could go beyond trade restrictions.
The US has been pressuring Beijing over its support to Russia during the war in Ukraine, human rights issues, and Taiwan.
Chinese president Xi Jinping said in a meeting with Mr Biden last month that Beijing stood “ready to work with a new US administration”.
He said a stable China-US relationship was critical not only to the two nations but to the “future and destiny of humanity”.
“Make the wise choice,” Mr Xi cautioned during his meeting with the outgoing president on the sidelines of an international summit in Peru. “Keep exploring the right way for two major countries to get along well with each other.”
Mr Trump’s relationship with his Chinese counterpart started out well during his first term before becoming strained over disputes about trade and the origins of the Covid pandemic.
He sent former Iowa governor Terry Branstad as his ambassador to China. Mr Branstad sought to leverage his old ties with Chinese officials, including Mr Xi, to improve the bilateral relationship.
The two sides still plunged headlong into a trade war, with the US imposing tariffs on Chinese goods worth more than $360bn.
Additional reporting by agencies.
