CIA Director May Have Secretly Visited China

US officials revealed that CIA Director William Burns secretly visited China and met with several counterparts in May.

"Director Burns traveled to Beijing last month and met with his Chinese counterparts, emphasizing the importance of maintaining intelligence dialogue channels," a US official said on June 2.

However, the official refused to disclose details about the timing of the visit and the identities of the Chinese officials that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) met.

Previously, five sources said Mr. Burns visited China in May. One source confirmed that Mr. Burns did not participate in diplomatic work but only met with Chinese intelligence officials.

The White House and the CIA declined to comment on Burns’s trip to China. The CIA has a policy of not releasing the travel schedules of its agency’s leaders.

CIA Director William Burns speaks in Langley, Virginia, USA in July 2022. Photo: AFP — CIA Director William Burns speaks in Langley, Virginia, USA in July 2022. Photo: *AFP*

Mr. Burns spent many years in the foreign service before being appointed by President Joe Biden as CIA director in March 2021. He served as US ambassador to Russia and then as deputy secretary of state under President Barack Obama.

US experts say Mr. Burns is knowledgeable about China and is respected by politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties. According to Dennis Wilder, a former CIA China expert and former White House Asia adviser, CIA directors "often engage in covert diplomacy" with "the advantage of intelligence industry relationships built up over many years."

The news of Mr. Burns' visit to China was revealed at a time when US-China relations have not improved significantly.

The Pentagon announced in late May that China declined an invitation to a bilateral meeting at the Defense Minister level in Singapore, on the sidelines of the 2023 Shangri-La Dialogue.

China's Foreign Ministry said on May 31 that Defense Minister Li Shangfu could not accept an invitation to meet with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin because Washington had not addressed Beijing's concerns.

Secretary Austin said on June 1 that China's refusal to meet was "unfortunate", especially in the context of the above incident. He expressed concern that "at some point an incident will arise and could get out of control very quickly".

During the opening night of the 2023 Shangri-La Dialogue on the evening of June 2, Mr. Lee and Mr. Austin shook hands and had a brief exchange. The Pentagon described the exchange as having no significant content.

US-China tensions worsened sharply after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022.

The two countries had recorded optimistic signals when Chinese President Xi Jinping met US President Joe Biden in Indonesia in November 2022, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. However, the incident of the US shooting down a Chinese balloon in February, which it assessed as a military reconnaissance device, caused high-level dialogue between the two countries to freeze.

Thanh Danh (According to Reuters, AFP, Financial Times )

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