“China is a ticking time bomb”, launches Joe Biden

2023-08-11 03:24:33

U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that America’s arch-rival China was “a ticking time bomb,” citing its economic problems and aging workforce.

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“China is a ticking time bomb in many ways,” he said during a trip to Utah in the west of the country.

The Democrat pointed out that the country was experiencing high unemployment and that its workforce was aging. Because of this, “China is in trouble,” he said.

For Joe Biden, this gives cause for concern, because “when bad people have problems, they do bad things”.

Getty Images via AFP

At the end of June, the president had offended Beijing by considering that his counterpart Xi Jinping belonged to the category of “dictators”, a comment seen as a “provocation” by Chinese diplomacy.

Thursday, however, Joe Biden assured that he was seeking to maintain “a rational relationship with China”. “I mean no harm to China, but I’m watching.”

The United States has recently revived its dialogue with China, with a succession of visits by senior American officials to Beijing, including the head of diplomacy Antony Blinken.

The purpose of this trip was to turn the page on a recent episode of tension, around a Chinese balloon described as a “spy” shot down by the United States in February.