Scenes from The Aspen Security Forum

Steve Clemons interviews China’s new US Ambassador Xie Feng (Chris Council / Aspen Security Forum)

I’m at the The Aspen Security Forum this week deep in the Rocky Mountains. This is one of the higher profile foreign policy and international security conferences, alongside annual events like the Munich Security Conference and Halifax International Security Forum. The Aspen Forum tends to attract big players. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Antony Blinken, CIA Director William Burns, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, China’s new US Ambassador Xie Feng and many, many more.

For such a high profile gathering, it is a rather intimate affair — a deliberate consequence of the pristine mountain setting. As I type this, the conference is about half over. The big event later today is CIA Director Bill Burns.

As you would expect, competition with China and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are dominating the discussions. On the former, the new Chinese Ambassador to …