Beijing’s policies uniting US interest groups – against China, veteran diplomat Christopher Hill warns

Time for a new approach, and shared interest in North Korean denuclearisation a good place to start, former US negotiator suggests

Both sides need to ‘better understand’ their respective political situations

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Former US diplomat Christopher Hill has urged China and the US to focus on areas of common interest to reduce mistrust. Photo: AP

Published: 12:30pm, 12 Dec 2019Updated: 11:43pm, 12 Dec 2019

China’s US policies are uniting a broad range of American interests against the world’s second-largest economy, and a veteran US diplomat believes it is time for a new approach.

Christopher Hill, former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said China needed to start peeling back its assertive stance across the board to avoid different American interest groups coming together to back a tough policy response to Beijing.

“It is as if China has lined up every important US constituency and decided to simultaneously upset each and every one,” he said in an interview in Sanya in the southern Chinese province of Hainan.

“It is just striking that you have labour unions, big businesses, everybody, kind of upset with China. And I think China could manage that a little bit better.”

Instead, the two sides could improve ties by engaging more in areas of shared common interest – such as the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, said Hill, who led the US negotiating team during the six-party talks between 2005 and 2007 aimed at pressing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.