President of China Xi Jinping.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden warned lawmakers Thursday that China is aggressively outperforming the United States on infrastructure.
“They invest a lot of money, they invest billions of dollars and they deal with a whole range of issues related to transportation, the environment and a whole range of other things,” Biden said, referring to a dual group of senators. with whom he met in the Oval Office.
“They have a big, big new initiative in the field of railways and they already have a railway line that travels 225 miles per hour easily,” he explained, adding that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping for two hours on Wednesday. “They’re going, you know, if we do not move, they’re going to have our lunch,” Biden said after the meeting with members of the neighborhood and public works.
“We just have to act. And what I want to talk to these people about – as they are the most important committee – is how we start it. I have set out what I think we should do,” the president added.
The telephone conversation with Xi and the meeting with lawmakers come as the new US government works to address human rights violations and restore trade relations with the world’s second largest economy.
During a speech at the State Department last week, Biden said he would work more closely with allies to bring about a setback against Beijing.
“We will confront China’s economic abuse,” Biden said, describing Beijing as “America’s most serious competitor.”
Tensions between Beijing and Washington, the two largest economies in the world, skyrocketed under the Trump administration, which escalated a trade war and worked to ban Chinese technology companies from doing business in the US.
In an interview with CBS, Biden said that his government is ready for ‘extreme competition’ with China, but that his approach will be different from that of his predecessor.
“I’m not going to do it like Trump did. We’re going to focus on international road rules,” Biden said Sunday.
Following his remarks at the Pentagon on Wednesday, a Biden reporter asked if he had any interest in punishing China over the country’s lack of transparency over the Covid-19 outbreak last year.
“I’m interested in all the facts,” Biden said according to a pool report.
Foreign Minister Antony Blinken spoke to his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, for the first time this weekend.
In a tense call, Blinken told Yang that the US would address China on a number of issues, including human rights violations.
Blinken also called on Beijing to condemn the recent military coup in Myanmar.