President Xi Jingping.
Getty Images
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden stated his administration was prepared for “extreme competition” with China however that his technique would be various than his predecessor.
“I’m not going to do it the way Trump did. We are going to focus on the international rules of the road,” Biden informed in a CBS interview clip released Sunday.
“We need not have a conflict but there is going to be extreme competition,” he included.
In his interview with CBS, Biden stated that he had actually not yet spoken with China’s Xi Jinping given that rising to the country’s greatest workplace last month.
“I know him pretty well,” Biden stated, discussing that as vice president he invested more time with Xi than any world leader has. “He’s very bright and he’s very tough and – I don’t mean it as a criticism it’s just a reality – he doesn’t have a democratic…bone in his body.”
The stress in between Beijing and Washington, the world’s 2 biggest economies, skyrocketed under the Trump administration. Over the previous 4 years, Trump has actually put blame directly on China for a wide variety of complaints, consisting of copyright theft, unreasonable trade practices and just recently the coronavirus pandemic, which has actually eliminated more than 460,000 Americans.
Last week, Biden stated he would work more carefully with allies in order to install pushback versus China.
“We will confront China’s economic abuses,” Biden discussed, explaining Beijing as America’s “most serious competitor.”
United States President Donald Trump (L) and China’s President Xi Jinping shake hands at an interview following their conference outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Artyom Ivanov | TASS | Getty Images
“But we’re also ready to work with Beijing when it’s in America’s interest to do so. We’ll compete from a position of strength by building back better at home and working with our allies and partners,” the president stated at the State Department.
Though Biden has actually not yet talked with Xi, Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked for the very first time with his Chinese equivalent, Yang Jiechi, over the weekend.
In a tense call, Blinken informed Yang the U.S. would hold China liable for its actions, especially as it relates to Taiwan. He likewise required Beijing to condemn the current military coup in Myanmar.
During his Senate verification hearing, Blinken informed legislators that Trump “was right in taking a tougher approach to China.”
“I disagree, very much, with the way that he went about it in a number of areas, but the basic principle was the right one, and I think that’s actually helpful to our foreign policy,” Blinken stated a day prior to Biden’s inauguration.
