Biden reaffirms China-U.S. ties
Vice president says investments are ‘safe’
CHENGDU, China – Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up a five-day visit to China on Sunday that offered him extensive face-time with the country’s expected future leader, Xi Jinping, and delivered a strong message of U.S. mutual interdependence with the world’s second-largest economy.
Biden also made the case for continued U.S. economic vitality despite current budget woes and sought to reassure China’s leaders and ordinary citizens about the safety of their assets in the United States following the downgrading of America’s credit rating.
“You’re safe,” Biden told students in a question-and-answer session following a speech at Sichuan University.
Biden and Xi, China’s vice president who is expected to begin taking over the top leadership next year, later visited a high school that was rebuilt after the devastating 2008 earthquake, partly with the help of U.S. government and private assistance.
In his remarks to students, Biden emphasized the frequent exchanges between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao along with government officials in the political and economic field. He said there needed to be more contacts between their civilian and military leaders over security issues, especially on cybersecurity and maritime issues where the sides view matters from different perspectives.
Biden said the U.S. and China both need global stability, including preventing Iran and North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons. He also reasserted that the U.S. will remain a Pacific nation in the future, saying that the American presence has benefited regional stability and allowed China to focus on economic development.
Biden said he recognized frustrations among many Chinese businesspeople and officials at the time needed to obtain visas to visit the U.S. and said Washington was working on improvements. Addressing complaints over restrictions on high-tech exports to China, he said Washington had struck 1,000 items off the blacklist.
But he said U.S. companies continue to face major investment barriers in China, a frequent complaint in the U.S. business community here. He said U.S. businesses were locked out of entire fields and face “restrictions that no other major economy imposes on us or so broadly.”
Rather than fearing Chinese competition, the U.S. relishes the pressure to become more competitive and hopes for continued Chinese prosperity, with the $110 billion in U.S. exports to China last year generating hundreds of thousands of jobs, Biden said.