Biden says there will be ‘extreme competition’ with China, but won’t take Trump approach

President Joe Biden said his administration was ready for “extreme competition” with China but that his approach would be different than his predecessor. “I’m not going to do it the way Trump did. We are going to focus on the international rules of the road,” Biden told in a CBS interview clip published Sunday. “We need not have a conflict but there is going to be extreme competition,” he added.

In his interview with CBS, Biden said that he had not yet spoken to China’s Xi Jinping since ascending to the nation’s highest office last month. “I know him pretty well,” Biden said, explaining that as vice president he spent more time with Xi than any world leader has. “He’s very bright and he’s very tough and – I don’t mean it as a criticism it’s just a reality – he doesn’t have a democratic…bone in his body.”

The tension between Beijing and Washington, the world’s two largest economies, soared under the Trump administration. Over the past four years, Trump has placed blame squarely on China for a wide range of grievances, including intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices and recently the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 460,000 Americans.

Biden says there will be ‘extreme competition’ with China, but won’t take Trump approach, CNBC, Feb 8