Joe Biden calls China ‘ticking time bomb’ due to economic troubles
- The US president says the Asian giant is ‘in trouble’ because of weak growth, and when ‘bad folks have problems, they do bad things’
- The comments are some of the most alarming yet that Biden has made about the US’s chief geopolitical rival
US President Joe Biden on Thursday called China a “ticking time bomb” because of its economic challenges and said the country was in trouble because of weak growth.
“They have got some problems. That’s not good because when bad folks have problems, they do bad things,” Biden said at a political fundraiser in Utah.
Biden’s remarks were reminiscent of comments he made at another fundraiser in June when he referred to President Xi Jinping as a “dictator.”
China called the remarks a provocation.
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US President Biden defends calling Chinese leader Xi Jinping a ‘dictator’
Those comments came soon after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken completed a visit to China aimed at stabilising relations that Beijing described as being at their lowest point since formal ties were established in 1979.