Joe Biden warned in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the rivalry between the United States and China would take the form of “intense competition”, stressing that he wanted to avoid a “conflict” between the two major world powers.

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The US President made it clear that he had not yet spoken with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, but he made it clear that he had “no reason not to contact him.”

“It’s very difficult.” Joe Biden added, according to excerpts published by CBS, of this interview, “He does not have, and I am not saying this as criticism, it is just a fact, and he has no iota of democracy in it.” Which will be broadcast in full in the post Noon.

China is seen unanimously in Washington as the United States’ primary strategic opponent, and its main challenge on the international stage.

However, the new US president remained extremely vague about the issue during his first foreign policy speech on Thursday. He promised to be “on a date with the advancement of authoritarianism, especially the increasing ambitions of China.”

He pledged, without explaining how, to “confront China’s economic violations” and “its aggressive actions,” and defend human rights, while working with Beijing “when it is in America’s interest.”

After pressing CBS to say more of his intentions, Joe Biden said he wanted to “focus on international rules”.

He said, “I wouldn’t treat this like Trump.” “We should not have a conflict. But there will be intense competition,” he added, stressing that he knew Xi Jinping “well enough” to get, as Barack Obama’s vice president between 2009 and 2017, “24-25 hours.” Private interviews with him. “

The confrontation between the two countries took on the emergence of a new Cold War under the presidency of Donald Trump, despite the ambivalence of the latter, who initially focused his attack on the trade front while showing his “friendship” with Xi Jinping, before he later lines up. Behind the hard line of his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

For his part, the Chinese president warned at the end of last January of a “new cold war” that, according to him, would lead to a “dead end.”