President Joe Biden said he is looking at a reshuffle of U.S.-China policy from the Trump administration, saying the two countries can avoid conflict, even as he said Chinese President Xi Jinping ‘lack of democratic bone in his body.
Biden said he did not mean the line as a critic – but jumped when his administration began to press China on Hong Kong, how it handled Tibet, and how it handled Uighurs on the western border.
Biden identified in an interview with CBS Xi, who secured power in 2018 when the National People’s Congress abolished term limits and forced him to be president ‘for life,’ is not a Democrat.
President Joe Biden said of Chinese President Xi Jinping: ‘he doesn’t have a democratic, small-D bone in his body’
But he sought to at least maintain the opportunities that the U.S. and China would have on a more cooperative basis, even as both countries go against China’s trade and ambitions as a competitive global power. .
‘It’s very clear,’ Biden said of Xi. ‘It’s very sad. No – and I don’t see it as a criticism, just the truth, he doesn’t have a democratic, small-D bone in his body. But … the question, I’ve been told all along, is that we don’t have to have conflict. ‘
“But there will be a lot of competition. And I’m not going to do as he knows. And that’s because it is – sending signals as well. I’m not going to do as Trump did. We are going to focus on international road rules, ‘he said.
Biden also explained why he has yet to phone his spokesman, whom he met many times when he was vice president during the Obama Administration. He also chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
‘We haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet,’ said Biden. ‘There is no reason not to call it. I may have spent more time with Xi Jinping, he has told me, than any world leader because I had 24, 25 hours of private meetings when I was vice president, ‘he said. He traveled 17,000 miles with him. I know him well. ‘
Biden made the comments in an interview with CBS
Biden said he seems to have spent more time with Xi than any other national leader
ROUGH PATCH: The U.S. and China have violated the human rights agenda, intellectual property rights, and the trade deficit
US President Joe Biden departs from St. Joseph of Brandywine Catholic Church after Mass in Wilmington, Delaware, USA, February 7, 2021
Chinese troops march past Tiananmen Square ahead of an armed parade on September 3, 2015 in Beijing, China
His comments to the network are part of an effort to make U.S.-China relations more predictable and hope cooperative, after years of fighting over trade in addition to the coronavirus during the Trump administration.
President Trump intervened in Beijing and blamed him for what he called the ‘China virus,’ which first appeared in Wuhan, China. His tenure reflected a controversial trade war, which settled after a ‘Stage One’ agreement, but U.S. officials still blame China for unfair practices.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken telephoned the Director General of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi on Friday. According to State Department comment Ned Price, Blinken raised a number of issues that are flashpoints.
Blinken ‘urged the United States to continue to stand up for human rights and democratic values, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and urged China to join the international community there. to criticize the arms cup in Burma, ‘he said. ‘The Secretary reaffirmed that the United States will work with its allies and partners in safeguarding our shared values and interests to hold the PRC to account for its efforts to achieve stability in the Indo -Pacific, spanning the Taiwan Strait, and weakening the rules-based international system. ‘
Biden’s views on China emerged when CBS released the second part of his pre-Super Bowl interview, a tradition for leaders to get their opinions out before the big game.
Earlier Sunday, he visited the church near his home in Wilmington, where he is spending his first weekend away from the White House as president.