He’s still the Schmo of the United States (SCHMOTUS) In his second major policy flip-flop in a week Joe Biden now says, “We need to get tough with China. China poses a serious challenge to us, and in some areas a real threat.” Which wouldn’t be wrong if it didn’t reverse a policy he’s had for two decades, and he didn’t say the complete opposite thing a month ago.
Biden didn’t just say it last month—he mocked President Trump for believing China was a threat.
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On May 1st (a favorite day for socialists) at a campaign stop in Iowa City Biden said,
“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. They can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean in the west. They can’t figure out how they are going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know,they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not competition for us.”
The SCHMOTUS doubled-down on his stance two weeks later in New Hampshire:
“What are we doing? We’re walking around with our heads down, ‘Woe is me.’ No other nation can catch us, including China. I got criticized for saying that. I’ve spent as much time with [Chinese President] Xi Jinping as any world leader has.”
Biden was roundly criticized for his statements, For example, Fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio told CNN that Joe Biden’s China statement as “stunningly out of touch.”
“I actually think that’s stunning,” Ryan said. “And I love Joe Biden. But I think that’s stunningly out of touch with where we are right now.” Ryan cited China’s initiatives such as building militarized islands in the South China Sea and dominating the electric car and solar power industries.
“They’re putting billions of dollars behind these projects, and they have a 100-year plan,” he added. “We’re in a 24-hour news cycle. And they’re winning, and that’s the urgency that I’m bringing to this race.”
Well, Ryan and the other critics of Biden’s China stance no longer have to worry. Because on Tuesday Biden was in Iowa again and did a 180-degree turn on China.
“We are in a competition with China. We need to get tough with China. They are a serious challenge to us and in some areas a real threat.”
Now that he had the same position on China as Trump, he criticized the President’s strategy.
And every single step that Donald Trump is taking is only exacerbating the challenge. While Trump is tweeting, China is making massive investments in technologies of the future. While Trump is name-calling, China is building roads, bridges, and high-speed rail. While Trump is pursuing a damaging and erratic trade war, without any real strategy, China is positioning itself to lead the world in renewable energy. While Trump is attacking our friends, China is pressing its advantage all over the world. So you bet I’m worried about China — if we keep following Trump’s path.
What Biden didn’t address is the fact that he has always been a big supporter of increasing trade with China and in 2012 he said that China was fixing the very same issues President Trump is trying to address with China today.
Jim Geraghty of NRO discovered:
Biden has always supported expanded trade with China. In 2000, he voted to approve Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. In a presidential debate in 2007, when asked, “Would you call for tariffs to protect American consumers from unsafe products from China? Are you willing to go there?” Biden answered, “I’m not. No, I’m not willing to go there. You don’t need to start a tariff war. All you have to do is enforce the law. Enforce the law.”
In a 2012 speech alongside then-Vice President Xi Jinping, he declared, “I believe that a rising China is a positive development — not only for China but also for the United States and the world. It will fuel economic growth and prosperity, and a rising China will bring to the fore a new partner with whom we can have help meeting the global challenges we all face.” In that same speech, Biden declared, “China has responded to our concerns about procurement policies and established a high-level body to strengthen enforcement of intellectual property rights as well.”
So which position is really Bidens? Perhaps what he really believes is that the Chinese government shouldn’t fund abortions, also known as the Xi Amendment.
The truth is Biden doesn’t really know about foreign policy. As former secretary of defense under Obama wrote in his biography Biden’s “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
