Mayor Pete Buttigieg argued Thursday that the socialist Chinese model of government was looking more attractive than American democracy under President Donald Trump.
“We got a much bigger issue at our hands, at a moment when their authoritarian model is being held up as an alternative to ours because ours looks so chaotic compared to theirs right now because of our internal divisions,” Pete Buttigieg said.
The South Bend mayor spoke about the threat posed by China during MSNBC’s Democrat debate on Thursday.
“They’re using technology for the perfection of dictatorship,” he warned.
He said that Trump’s disregard of Democratic values was hurting America’s image abroad.
He praised China for state spending on developing technologies like artificial intelligence, arguing that America has to match them in order to deliver on important technology breakthroughs.
“The biggest thing we’ve got to do is invest in our own domestic competitiveness,” he said.
On the campaign trail, Buttigieg has also compared Trump’s America to Russia.
“Russia nationalism, xenophobia, homophobia, and repression of the press are both highly disturbing in that country and disturbingly ascendent in our own country,” he said during a speech on foreign policy.