US must stop treating China as an enemy, says son of former president George HW Bush
- Neil Bush hits out at ‘America first’ rhetoric and argues that Washington should stop regarding the country as an existential threat
- Other speakers at forum organised by former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, support calls to improve relations between America and China
The US should adopt an “honest, direct and targeted” approach in engaging China and not treat the country as an enemy, according to Neil Bush, son of former president George HW Bush.
Speaking in Hong Kong on Wednesday at a forum organised by Tung Chee-hwa, former chief executive of Hong Kong, Bush said that demonising China would lead the US down a dangerous path.
“China is not an economic enemy or existential national security threat to the United States … The demonisation of China is being fuelled by a rising nationalism in the US that is manifested in anti-immigrant, anti-Chinese, pro-America-first rhetoric,” Bush, who is now chairman of the George HW Bush Foundation for China-US Relations, said in his keynote speech.
Bush is one of the many speakers who have addressed the urgency of restoring China-US relations in the two-day forum.
Other noted speakers included ex-Chinese vice-premier Zeng Peiyan, two former ambassadors to Washington and Beijing – Zhou Wenzhong and Max Baucus – and Daniel Russel, a former US assistant secretary of state.