White House downplays Joe Biden’s remark that China is a ticking time bomb

A day after calling the second-largest economy in the world a “ticking time bomb,” President Joe Biden was accused of escalating his vitriol against Beijing. The White House responded by noting that Biden’s comments were consistent with US critiques of Beijing.

“The president is talking about the internal problems China has, some of which are economic in nature. And some of them are on the social and cultural front,” John Kirby, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, told reporters on Friday.

 

According to Kirby, he intended to refute the notion that the US had “sharpened our language.”

 

When and where we think it’s in our best interest and in the interest of our friends and partners to do so, Kirby said, “We have been very consistent about pushing back on China, in the region and beyond, rhetorically and practically.” “When it comes to PRC behavior, intimidation, and coercion, of not only the neighbors, but of countries around the world, we’ve never shied away from calling it like we see it.”

 

On Thursday, Biden slammed China, the US’s main economic and geopolitical foe, calling Chinese Communist Party officials “bad folks.” He said that the nation’s economy has halted and referred to President Xi Jinping’s well-known Belt and Road Initiative as “debt and noose” because of how much money it has lent to developing nations.

 

The president made a number of inaccurate statements about the Chinese economy in his remarks as well.

 

Biden misrepresented China’s growth rate when he said, “China was growing at 8% a year to maintain growth, now close to 2% a year,” at a campaign fundraiser in Park City, Utah. “It’s in a position where the number of people who are of retirement age is larger than the number of people of working age,” he said, adding another inaccurate assertion that was wrong by hundreds of millions of people.

 

They have some issues, he remarked. That’s awful because evil people commit crimes when they are in trouble.

 

A meeting with Xi, who is anticipated to visit the US in November to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, may result from Biden’s remarks, which were some of his most direct criticisms of China to date and threatened to undo months of delicate diplomacy aimed at reducing recent tensions.

 

The comments, however, come at a delicate moment for Xi and China since the country’s general economic prognosis is still bleak. Concerns about potential implications on the global economy have grown as a result of China’s gross domestic product growing at a slower-than-anticipated rate of 5.5% in the first half of the year compared to a year earlier.

 

China entered deflation in July and is now dealing with decreasing exports, rising young unemployment, and a collapsed real estate market, which is emphasized by a debt problem for Country Garden Holdings Co., once the nation’s biggest private-sector developer by sales and now in risk of defaulting.

 

Despite new investment restrictions by the US targeting the semiconductor, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence sectors, as well as rising tensions regarding Taiwan, whose vice president, Lai Ching-te, is scheduled to visit New York and San Francisco in the coming days, Biden insisted on Thursday that the US is not seeking a fight with Beijing.

 

This is a challenging, intricate bilateral partnership, Kirby said on Friday.

 

“The president understands that, and when he met with President Xi, back in Bali, they both agreed they need to lead in this relationship and manage it in a responsible way,” the source said. “The strategy we want to employ hasn’t changed at all.”

 

How China will react to Biden’s most recent comments is unknown. The nation referred to Biden’s characterization of Xi as a “dictator” in June as a “public political provocation,” and a few weeks later welcomed John Kerry, the ambassador for climate change, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on separate visits. Later this month, Gina Raimondo, the US secretary of commerce, will go to China.

 

Since their November encounter outside the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, which was followed by months of worsening ties over events ranging from an alleged spy balloon to military skirmishes in the South China Sea, Xi and Biden have not talked.