US President Joe Biden said China’s recent downturn could diminish any inclination by Beijing to invade Taiwan, adding that the country’s economic troubles have left his Chinese counterpart with “his hands full.”
The US president, who traveled to Vietnam on Sunday following a gathering of the G20 leaders in India, said he had met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) while at the summit.
Pressed on why he has not met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in 10 months, Biden said Xi “has his hands full right now.”
Photo: AFP
Xi opted not to attend the G20 with no explanation given. The two leaders’ next best opportunity to meet would be at the APEC summit in San Francisco in November.
China “has a difficult economic problem right now for a whole range of reasons that relate to international growth and lack thereof, and the policies that China has followed,” Biden said.
“I don’t think it’s going to cause China to invade Taiwan, matter of fact the opposite, probably doesn’t have the same capacity as it had before,” he added on Sunday during a press conference in Hanoi.
The US president also addressed growing tensions between the world’s two largest economies over their technological ambitions.
China is seeking to ban the use of iPhones for state-owned enterprises — representing a blow to Apple Inc and broadening previously announced restrictions that only targeted government agencies. In 2017, the US Congress passed laws restricting certain Pentagon networks from using equipment from Huawei Technologies Co (華為) or ZTE Corp (中興).
“I’m not going to sell China material that would increase their capacity to make more nuclear weapons or engage in defense activities,” Biden said.
Huawei recently quietly revealed a mobile phone utilizing technology the US has sought to keep out of Beijing’s hands, questioning the efficacy of US chip restrictions.
The US Department of Commerce has begun an official probe into the advanced made-in-China chip housed within Huawei’s latest smartphone, although more information is needed to determine how the chip was produced and what, if any, action the US would take in response.
Biden said he had no intention of trying to contain or isolate the world’s second-largest economy.
“I don’t want to contain China, I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about,” he said.
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