U.S. President Joe Biden claimed China’s recent recession could any Beijing’s tendency to invade Taiwan, adding that the country’s economic issues have left his Chinese counterpart with “his hands full”, according to the Japan Times.
The U.S. president, who visited Vietnam on Sunday after a gathering of the Group of 20 leaders summit in India, said he had met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang while at the summit. Pressed on why he hasn’t met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 10 months, Biden said Xi “is too busy now to have meetings.”
The Chinese president did not explain the reasons for his absence from the G20 summit. The next time the two leaders can meet is at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November. Biden said:
“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. 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 Sunday during a news conference in Hanoi.”
Biden also spoke about growing tensions between the world’s two largest economies over their technological ambitions.
China is going to ban the use of iPhones for state-owned enterprises. It represents a blow to Apple and broadening previously announced restrictions that only targeted government agencies. In 2017, the U.S. Congress passed laws restricting certain Pentagon networks from using equipment from Huawei Technologies or ZTE. Biden said:
“I’m not going to sell China material that would increase their capacity to make more nuclear weapons or engage in defense activities.”
Huawei recently quietly produced a mobile phone that uses technology the U.S. has sought to keep out of Beijing’s hands, questioning the efficacy of U.S. chip restrictions.
The events that happened just as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was going on a trip to Beijing and as Biden was preparing to leave for the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi, could derail recent efforts by the U.S. to thaw relations between the two countries.
The Commerce Department has started an official invstigation into the advanced made-in-China chip housed within Huawei’s latest smartphone, though more information is needed to determine how the chip was produced and what, if any, action the U.S. will take in response.
Biden and Xi have not spoken since the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last November. That encounter spurred progress on U.S.-China relations before a new round of strains, including over Taiwan, military encounters in the South China Sea, Biden’s export bans on semiconductor technology, and an alleged Chinese spy balloon that crossed the U.S., again chilled ties.
Recent months have seen increased communications between the two countries, with five U.S. Cabinet officials traveling to China for talks with their counterparts. Raimondo’s visit followed trips by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, climate envoy John Kerry, and CIA Director Bill Burns. It remains to be seen if any of the visits will result in concrete outcomes.
