Biden: China must expect ‘extreme competition’ from US

AP

February 7, 2021 | 13:40

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden says China is facing “extreme competition” from the US under his government, but that the new relationship he wants to forge does not have to be a conflict.

In an interview aired on Sunday, Biden admitted that he had not spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping since his inauguration on January 20, but noted that the two leaders had met many times when both men served as vice president.

“I know him pretty well,” Biden said in an excerpt from the interview that CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ aired on Sunday.

If they do talk, they will have ‘a lot’ to talk about, “Biden said.

Biden appears to be concentrating his initial telephone diplomacy on US allies. He has so far spoken to the leaders of Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the NATO Secretary General.

He also worked in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the interview, Biden described Xi as ‘very bright’ and ‘very tough’, but without a democratic, small D, leg in his body. ‘

Shortly after Biden succeeded President Donald Trump in the White House, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “After this very difficult and extraordinary time, both the Chinese and the American people deserve a better future.” Beijing welcomes the decision of the Biden government to stay in the World Health Organization and return to the Paris climate agreement.

However, the new government is unlikely to significantly change US policy on trade, Taiwan, human rights and the South China Sea, which has angered Xi’s increasingly assertive government.

Biden, in the interview recorded on Friday, said he “kept telling Xi that we did not have to have a conflict.” But, Biden added, there will be ‘extreme competition’. And I’m not going to do it like he knows. And that’s because he’s sending signals too. ”

Biden said he would not pursue US-China relations as Trump did, but would focus on ‘international road rules’.