Joe Biden stood by his previous support for allowing China into the World Trade Organization and granting it favorable trade status.
In an interview that aired Thursday, CNN host Jake Tapper challenged the Democratic presidential nominee on his stance from when he was vice president. “It is in our self-interest that China continue to prosper,” Biden said in 2011.
“A lot of people think that allowing China into the World Trade Organization, which you supported, extending most-favored nation status to China, which you supported, that those steps allowed China to take advantage of the United States by using our own open trade deals against us,” Tapper said. “Do you think, in retrospect, you were naive about China?”
“No,” Biden said. “In the context of that, we want China to grow. We don’t want to have a war with China.”
Biden’s support for expanding trade with China and his brushing off of concerns that China will overtake the U.S. as a global power are frequent targets of attack from President Trump and his campaign.
“It’s in our interest for China to be stable. It’s not in our interest for China to take advantage of us,” Biden said. “What has Trump done? He’s poked his finger in the eye of all our friends and allies.”
“The way to keep China in line is to make two things clear,” Biden said. “We’re going to play by international rules. So, when XI Jinping said to me, ‘We were going to make sure we had these air identification zones you can’t fly through,’ I said no.”
