Biden sees China as the only global rival to US

US President Joe Biden's administration said Wednesday it would prioritize winning over China, seeing it as the only global rival to the United States, even as it also works to constrain a "dangerous" Russia.

"The post-Cold War era is over, and the competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next," Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said in a speech at Georgetown University to unveil the national security strategy.

The strategy said the 2020s would be a "decisive decade for America and the world" -- for reducing conflict, promoting democracy over authoritarianism and confronting the key shared threat of climate change.

"We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia," the strategy said, referring to the People's Republic of China.

Vladimir Putin's Russia "poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown," the strategy added.

China, "by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective."

The release of the strategy was delayed by the Ukraine war, with Biden spending most of this year rallying allies against Russia and marshaling billions of dollars in weapons to Kiev, but it remains largely consistent with interim guidance laid out shortly after he took office in January 2021.

"I don't believe that the war in Ukraine has fundamentally altered Joe Biden's approach to foreign policy, which long predates his presidency," Sullivan earlier told reporters.

"But I do believe that it presents in living color the key elements of our approach -- the emphasis on allies, the importance of strengthening the hand of the democratic world and standing up for our fellow democracies and for democratic values," he said.

China wants to be 'world's leading power'

The strategy said the United States was willing to work even with competitors on shared interests, amid the Biden team's talks with top carbon emitter China on climate change, described as "the existential challenge of our time."

But the White House emphasized risks from China, warning that its rapid advances in technology aimed to mold the world order in support of "its own authoritarian model."

Despite Beijing's repeated denials it is seeking hegemony, the strategy said China "has ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world's leading power," using the favored US term for the broader Asia region.

The White House also tied a rising China to Biden's vows to prioritize the US middle class, saying Beijing was seeking to make the world dependent on its economy while limiting access to its own billion-plus market.

The strategy called for major investment at home, two months after Biden signed a $52 billion package to improve US capacity for building semiconductors, but also said the United States sought to "coexist peacefully" with China and manage the competition "responsibly."

"We are not seeking to have competition tip over into confrontation or a new Cold War and we are not engaging each country as simply a proxy battleground," Sullivan said.

The strategy release comes as Biden vows a reassessment of relations with one longtime US ally, Saudi Arabia, which moved to slash oil output -- benefitting energy exporter Russia and potentially raising gas prices for American consumers weeks before congressional elections.

The strategy called for a "more integrated the Middle East" that would reduce the long-term "resource demands" of the United States.

The strategy also acknowledged the need to address democratic shortcomings at home, where former president Donald Trump refused to concede defeat in the 2020 election and whose supporters led a deadly assault on the US Capitol.

"We have not always lived up to our ideals and in recent years our democracy has been challenged from within. But we have never walked away from our ideals," it said.

(Source: AFP)

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