China blasts ‘ill’ US as President Biden rallies allies on Europe trip

Bloomberg

China lashed out at the US, calling the country “very ill indeed,” after President Joe Biden secured support from European allies to present a more united front against Beijing.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian criticised Biden’s efforts during summits of the Group of Seven and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) in recent days. The response was the latest sign of Beijing’s frustration with Washington, amid tensions over everything from trade and security to human rights and the pandemic.
“The US is ill and very ill indeed,” Zhao told reporters in the ministry’s first news briefing since the G-7 meetings in the UK “The G-7 had better take its pulse and come up with a prescription.”
Zhao criticised the G-7’s communique, which expressed concern about Chinese polices in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang — issues that Beijing argues are its own domestic affairs. Still, he sought to play down the size of US’s coalition, saying the statement “exposes the bad intentions of the US and a few others to create confrontation and estrangement and expand differences.”
Washington has been seeking to build a united front on Beijing, though Biden settled for a condemnation at G-7 meeting and incremental results from Nato.
A communique released after Nato’s meeting mentioned China 10 times, compared to just once after the last summit in 2019. Russia was named more than 60 times this year. The document also said that the bloc “maintains a constructive dialogue with China where possible.” China took particular aim at Nato, after
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was “concerned by China’s coercive policies, which stand in contrast to the fundamental values enshrined in the Washington Treaty” on which the bloc rests.

Stoltenberg cited China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, military cooperation with Russia and its use of disinformation.
The alliance has “inflicted war and turmoil on the world,” Zhao said, raising the 1999 bombing of its embassy in Belgrade. “That is NATO’s debt of blood to the Chinese people,” Zhao said.
The U.S. later apologised for the incident, saying it was a mistake resulting from the use of outdated maps.
Earlier, China’s mission to the European Union had struck a more measured tone, saying the country doesn’t pose a “systemic challenge” to any countries. Still, the mission warned that Beijing wouldn’t “sit back” in the face of any challenges, according to a statement posted on its website on Tuesday.
Biden had pushed for G-7 to confront China on topics such as forced labour and human rights abuses, and on its Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure plan. He said he also raised the issue of China refusing outside access to its laboratories to determine the origin of the Covid-19 outbreak.
The G-7 communique calls for a “timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based” study led by the World Health Organization into the disease’s origins.
Some including German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed concern about turning the G-7 into an anti-China group. “This is not about being against something, but for something,” Merkel said at one point in the summit.
China doesn’t pose a threat to any of Nato member countries, said Henry Wang, president of the Center for China and Globalization, which has former government officials on its advisory board and describes itself as China’s leading global non-governmental think tank.
“China is not taking NATO as a rival and NATO should not project a rivalry on China,” he said. “We should really concentrate on peaceful constructions and working with the world, particularly in fighting the pandemic, climate change and the economic recovery.”

Republican party ‘diminished’ after Trump presidency: Biden
Bloomberg

President Joe Biden said he believed that the Republican Party had been “diminished” and “fractured” after the Trump presidency and that he was disappointed that
Republicans fearful of political retaliation wouldn’t investigate the January 6 US Capitol riot.
Biden, speaking after a Nato summit in Brussels, said he doesn’t worry that allies could be skeptical of his commitments or unwilling to deal with the US after Donald Trump’s time in office, during which the US withdrew from a number of international agreements. Yet the president expressed concern over the impact of what he called a “significant minority” of Americans who supported Trump on the larger politics.
“I think it’s appropriate to say the Republican Party is vastly diminished in numbers,” Biden said.

“The leadership of the Republican Party is fractured, and the Trump wing of the party is the bulk of the party, but it makes up a significant minority of the American people.”
Biden said he was disappointed with his former Senate colleagues who had voted against setting up a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol that occurred as the U.S. Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“It is disappointing that so many of my Republican colleagues in the Senate – who I know know better – have been reluctant to take on, for example, an investigation, because they’re worried about being primaried,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s threats to back challengers to any GOP officeholders he deemed disloyal.
Still, Biden said he believed Trump’s political moment was “passing” – even if it wouldn’t “easily” resolve.
“I think you’re going to see that, God willing, we’re going to make progress and there’s going to be a coalescing of Republicans, particularly young Republicans, who are coming up in the party,” Biden said.
And the president expressed optimism that allies and partners around the world would continue to work with the U.S., saying he believed by rejecting “overwhelming hyperbole” and speaking plainly he would be able to convince foreign leaders that the U.S. can be trusted.
“I think that they have seen things happen — as we have — that shocked them and surprised them that could have happened, but I think they — like I do — believe the American people are not going to sustain that kind of behavior,” he said.