Biden offended Beijing in June by describing his counterpart Xi Jinping as a “dictator,” in a comment slammed as a “provocation” by China’s foreign ministry…reports Asian Lite News
President Joe Biden said Thursday that China’s mounting economic problems make the country a “ticking time bomb.”
“China is a ticking time bomb in many cases,” Biden said at a private fundraising event in the western state of Utah.
He pointed to the country’s high unemployment and aging workforce, saying “China is in trouble.”
“When bad folks have problems, they do bad things,” he said.
Biden offended Beijing in June by describing his counterpart Xi Jinping as a “dictator,” in a comment slammed as a “provocation” by China’s foreign ministry.
Biden insisted Thursday that he was seeking “a rational relationship with China.”
“I don’t want to hurt China, but I’m watching,” he said.
The United States recently relaunched its dialogue with China, with a succession of visits to Beijing by senior American officials, including chief diplomat Antony Blinken.
The aim of Blinken’s trip was to turn the page on recent tensions surrounding a Chinese balloon described as a “spy” operation that was shot down by the United States in February.
China slams move
China on Thursday vowed to “safeguard” its interests against a new US policy to restrict investment in Chinese technology, accusing Washington of disrupting global supply chains.
US President Joe Biden hours earlier announced an executive order directing the Treasury Department to restrict certain US investments in China in sensitive high-tech sectors including semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
China’s foreign ministry blasted the move as an attempt to “engage in anti-globalization and de-sinicization,” warning that China would “resolutely safeguard its own rights and interests.”
“Beijing is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposes the United States’ insistence on introducing restrictions on investment in China, and has lodged solemn representations with the United States,” an unnamed foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement published online.
Biden’s executive order “seriously deviates from the market economy and fair competition principles the US has always promoted, and affects companies’ normal operation decisions, damages the international trade order, and severely disrupts the security of global industrial and supply chains,” the Chinese commerce ministry said in a separate statement.
“China expresses serious concern about this and reserves the right to take measures,” the spokesperson said in a statement published by the ministry, without mentioning specific countermeasures.
The restrictions, which are expected to take effect next year, come as Biden’s administration looks to bolster its position vis-a-vis China on a multitude of fronts: military, economic and technological.
China hopes the US will “avoid artificially obstructing global economic and trade exchanges and cooperation, and avoid setting up obstacles for the recovery of the world economy,” the Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson.
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