Biden stated the US and China have been engaged in a race to “win the financial competitors of the twenty first century”, and vowed that the US was embarking on an “infrastructure decade”, asserting plans this yr to repair greater than 65,000 miles of freeway and 1,500 bridges in disrepair.
“I’ve advised Xi Jinping, it’s by no means wager to wager in opposition to the American individuals. We’ll create good jobs for thousands and thousands of People, modernising roads, airports, ports and waterways all throughout America. We’ll do all of it to face up to the devastating results of the local weather disaster and promote environmental justice,” Biden stated in his first State of the Union handle on Tuesday evening.
His remarks hardly ruffled any feathers right here because the Chinese language International Ministry, which by no means let a US chief’s remarks unchallenged gave it a go in Wednesday’s briefing.
Whereas Russia and Ukraine dominated Biden’s a lot awaited handle, China remained a “subtext”.
“Biden’s one-hour speech contained only a handful of mentions for China. However the rising energy, which his administration considers a significant risk to US pursuits, was an unmistakable subtext to lots of his feedback about efforts to counter aggression by intolerant nations,” the Hong Kong-based South Morning Put up reported.
However as Biden spoke, a delegation of safety officers headed by former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers Mike Mullen was in Taiwan the place it held talks with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen amid apprehensions that Beijing might try motion akin to Russia’s army assault in Ukraine to seize the island.
On Tuesday, China, which claims Taiwan as a part of its mainland and vows to combine it, hit again at Washington for sending the safety delegation and warned that the US pays a “heavy value” for its makes an attempt to indicate assist to Taiwan’s independence.
Nevertheless, there have been no references to Taiwan in Biden’s handle nor something hostile China deemed match to react.
Biden’s low-key remarks in opposition to China, particularly when Washington and its European Union allies have been finishing up a significant marketing campaign in opposition to Beijing for its human rights violations in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, in addition to Beijing’s aggressive assertions to combine Taiwan, got here amid projections by Chinese language strategic consultants that Beijing might get relegated to backseat in US calculations after Ukraine disaster.
“Little doubt, the unfolding disaster (in Ukraine) has added a brand new dynamic to China’s tortuous relations with the US and its Western allies,” Wang Xiangwei, the famous columnist of the Put up, wrote in his newest column.
“Because the disaster is ready to devour the eye of Washington and Brussels and different capitals of the world for the subsequent few years, it is vitally probably that their united entrance stress in opposition to China will ease,” he stated.
“After all, it’s naive to suppose that Washington’s give attention to Russia would result in any elementary shift in its relationship with Beijing, prefer it did greater than 20 years in the past,” he stated.
“That ship has already sailed as confronting China was one of many few issues that united the politicians in Washington earlier than the Ukraine disaster,” he stated.
“However Beijing will definitely acquire extra room to manoeuvre and extra geopolitical advantages if the battle over Ukraine persists,” he stated.