Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed “China is not our problem” on Tuesday, appearing to once again flip-flop on the threat posed by the communist regime.
Biden, who has come under fire in recent weeks for his son’s shadowy business dealings in China, made the remark during a campaign appearance in Iowa while lambasting President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda.
“China’s not our problem if we invest and remember who we are,” the former vice president said:
The comment underscored Biden’s fluctuating stance regarding China. Throughout his decades-long tenure in public office, the former vice president sought cooperation with Beijing, at one point even claiming China’s rise was “positive” for America. Since launching his presidential campaign this year, however, that position has become increasingly controversial, especially as President Donald Trump wages a trade war with the communist power over its exploitive and manipulative economic practices.
Such controversy was on display this year during another trip to Iowa, where Biden scoffed at the notion that China was a threat to the American worker.
“I hear these stories about how China is going to eat our lunch. Give me a break!” Biden said, before adding, “They’re not bad folks.”
“Come on, man. … They can’t figure out how they are going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system,” the former vice president continued. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what: they’re not competition for us.”
The remarks quickly drew widespread rebuke from both those on the right and left, most notably from Trump and Republicans. Many, though, also noted that the former vice president’s youngest son, Hunter Biden, had negotiated lucrative business deals with a Chinese company later identified as having ties to the Communist regime in Beijing.
As Peter Schweizer, a senior contributor at Breitbart News, revealed in his bestselling book Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends Hunter Biden inked a $1.5 dollar deal with a subsidiary of the state-owned Bank of China only ten days after he visited the country with his father aboard Air Force Two in 2013:
In December of 2013, Vice President Joe Biden flies to Asia for a trip, and the centerpiece for that trip is a visit to Beijing, China. To put this into context, in 2013, the Chinese have just exerted air rights over the South Pacific, the South China Sea. They basically have said, ‘If you want to fly in this area, you have to get Chinese approval. We are claiming sovereignty over this territory.’ Highly controversial in Japan, in the Philippines, and in other countries. Joe Biden is supposed to be going there to confront the Chinese. Well, he gets widely criticized on that trip for going soft on China. For basically not challenging them, and Japan and other countries are quite upset about this.
Such criticism and the renewed interest in Schweizer’s findings forced the former vice president to reverse his tone on China in June.
“You bet I’m worried about China—if we keep following Trump’s path,” Biden said during a campaign swing through Iowa at the time. “While Trump is tweeting, China is making massive investments in technologies of the future.”
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