WASHINGTON, D.C.: The US Senate on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) confirmed Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the next ambassador to Beijing, providing President Donald Trump with an envoy whose decades-long connection to China could smooth relations between the global powers. Branstad will be thrust into the heart of one of the most important and sensitive relationships in global diplomacy, one that faces rising tensions in the South China Sea. The new US administration has yet to fully outline its policy with China, a nation Trump repeatedly attacked from the campaign trail last year. Branstad will help shepherd the 100-day action plan on economic cooperation that was launched between the two countries in April, when Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Trump at the US leader’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Branstad, who like Trump is 70, has known Chinese President Xi Jinping since the mid-1980s, when the Asian leader visited Iowa as a provincial official.

Source: Manila Times May 23, 2017 13:41 UTC