U.S. President Joe Biden says China won't replace the U.S. as the world's top economic and military superpower.
"China has an overall goal...to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world," he said at the White House. "That's not going to happen on my watch because the United States is going to continue to grow."
His watch might now be eight years. Biden has now decided he will run for reelection in 2024. He now said he expects to have another go at the presidency along with vice president Kamala Harris. "The answer is yes, my plan is to run for reelection," Biden said at his first presidential news conference. "That's my expectation."
During the same press briefing, Biden again assailed Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, as an authoritarian leader without a single democratic bone in his body.
He also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin as an autocratic leader who, like Xi, is bent on doing away with the rules-based international order.
Biden said Xi is "one of the guys, like Putin, who thinks that autocracy is the wave of the future, (and) democracy can't function in an ever-complex world."
In early February, Biden raised Chinese hackles by declaring Xi "doesn't have a democratic, small D, bone in his body." Biden repeated that assertion Thursday using almost the same words.
"He (Xi) doesn't have a democratic -- with a small 'd' -- bone in his body, but he's a smart, smart guy," according to Biden.
Citing his Xi two-hour conversation with Xi after taking office, Biden said he told Xi that as long as you and your country "continue to so blatantly violate human rights, we are going to continue in an unrelenting way to call it to the attention of the world, and make it clear, make it clear, what's happening. And he understood that."
Biden said his not calling out China's sins will undermine America's credibility.
"The moment a president walks away from that, as the last one did, is the moment we begin to lose our legitimacy around the world. It's who we are," he said.
Biden again said he'll work closely with U.S. allies to hold China accountable for its actions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and its treatment of the Uyghur minority.
