Vice President Biden takes harsher tone in China comments

Source: Wash. Post

America holds at least one key economic advantage over China, Vice President Biden said Thursday, declaring that because China’s authoritarian government represses its own citizens, they don’t think freely or innovate.

The comments came just two weeks after Biden hosted China’s presumptive next leader during Xi Jinping’s high-profile trip through the United States. During that visit, both sides stressed the potential for better relations and economic cooperation.

In his speech on Thursday, Biden asked students at Iowa State University, “Why have they not become [one of] the most innovative countries in the world? Why is there a need to steal our intellectual property? Why is there a need to have a business hand over its trade secrets to have access to a market of a billion, three hundred million people? Because they’re not innovating.”

Noting that China and similar countries produce many engineers and scientists but few innovators, Biden said, “It’s impossible to think different in a country where you can’t speak freely. It’s impossible to think different when you have to worry what you put on the Internet will either be confiscated or you will be arrested. It’s impossible to think different where orthodoxy reigns. That’s why we remain the most innovative country in the world.”

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