President Biden shifted to a dire warning about China after he was skewered on the campaign trail over speculation he would not stand up to Beijing if he won the White House.
Biden adopted a more forceful tone in the Oval Office on Thursday than he delivered as a candidate, the morning after his first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since taking office, as he looks to reset the bilateral relationship following several years of tensions under former President Donald Trump.
“If we don’t get moving, they’re going to eat our lunch,” he said.
But the now-president sounded the opposite tone not so long ago.
“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said in Iowa during a 2019 campaign stop.
Biden, tagged by Trump and his aides as “Beijing Biden,” was, back then, trying to make the broader point that China was too preoccupied with its own domestic and foreign policy issues to pose a threat to the United States.
“They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system,” Biden added in 2019. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But, guess what? They’re not competition for us.”
Biden and Xi spoke for two hours Wednesday, three weeks after Biden’s inauguration. Their conversation was delayed so Biden could talk to “partners in the region and allies,” as well as “Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill,” according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
The readout of the Biden-Xi discussion stated, “Biden underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan.”
“The two leaders also exchanged views on countering the COVID-19 pandemic, and the shared challenges of global health security, climate change, and preventing weapons proliferation,” the readout continued.
Biden later tweeted: “I told him I will work with China when it benefits the American people.”
On Thursday, Psaki wouldn’t provide further details, specifically whether Biden and Xi spoke about trade under the umbrella of “coercive and unfair economic practices,” the origins of the novel coronavirus, or the military coup in Myanmar.
Earlier this week, Biden announced a Pentagon-led review into the country’s China strategy, focusing in particular on the military and national security risks inherent in the relationship. Trade will be another priority of the Biden administration, with Trump-era 25% tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports still in place.
