Former Vice President Joe Biden has repeatedly downplayed the threat of China harming the United States, something that has come back to haunt him now that the world is working to contain the Wuhan coronavirus.
In April of 2011, Biden argued that a relationship with China would be mutually beneficial for both the American and Chinese people.
"There was a debate here in the United States and, quite frankly, throughout most of the West as whether a rising China was in the interest of the United States and the wider world," Biden said during an opening session of the United States-China strategic and economic dialogue. "As a young member of a Foreign Relations Committee, I wrote and I said and I believed then what I believe now: That a rising China is a positive, positive development, not only for China but for America and the world at large."
Joe Biden in 2011: "A rising China is a positive, positive development, not only for China but for America and the world writ large."
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 11, 2020
No wonder Obama Def Sec Gates said Biden has "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy & national security issue over the past 4 decades." pic.twitter.com/9ayI88CaZM
A couple of months ago, in January, Biden again downplayed China's hold over the United States.
"We talk about China as our competitor. We should be helping [China] and benefiting ourselves by doing that," he said during a campaign event in Iowa. "But the idea that China is going to eat our lunch. It's like I remember... in the late 90s, remember Japan was gonna eat own us? Give me a break."
FLASHBACK: On January 21, 2020, Joe Biden tells voters at a campaign event in Ames, IA that “we should be helping” China, “the idea that China’s going to eat our lunch…give me a break” pic.twitter.com/n8EWGhltNu
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 11, 2020
Biden has been all over the place with China. When the Wuhan coronavirus started and President Trump halted flights from China, the former vice president was quick to call the move "racist" and "xenophobic." Then he did a 180 and said it was the right move. He can't make up his mind because he has no true foreign policy understanding. He goes whichever way the wind blows. It's why Robert Gates, the Defense Secretary under the Obama/Biden administration, said Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
The one thing Trump will always have over Biden, at least on the foreign policy front, is that he campaigned on wanting to change the United States' relationship with China. He wanted China to be held accountable for their actions, unlike past administrations who have turned a blind eye to their malarkey.
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