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China's curt response on economy to Joe Biden: ‘Resilient, not collapsed’
China's economic recovery following three years' harsh Covid-19 restrictions lost momentum after a brisk start.
China's economy is resilient and has not collapsed, the Chinese foreign ministry said as it rejected claims made by US president Joe Biden that its economy is faltering and could cause wider problems. Officials from countries the United States and Australia have publicly raised concerns about China's economy. US president Joe Biden called China's economic situation a "crisis" while Australian treasurer Jim Chalmers said a slowing Chinese economy could in turn weigh on Australia's.
"It seems that there will be various theories of China's collapse every once in a while," Mao Ning, a ministry spokesperson, said, adding, "The fact is that China's economy has not collapsed. The spokesperson did not name Joe Biden or Jim Chalmers. China's economy has great potential and that the fundamentals of long-term improvement had not changed, she said. "We are confident and capable of promoting sustained and healthy economic development," Mao asserted.
This comes as China's economic recovery following three years' harsh Covid-19 restrictions lost momentum after a brisk start in the first quarter.
Read more: Joe Biden talks tough on China: ‘Don’t want to contain Beijing but…'
In Vietnam, Joe Biden said, “I don't want to contain China” accusing Beijing of "beginning to change some of the rules of the game" in international relations. The US president also said that he met Chinese premier Li Qiang at the G20 summit in India and discussed "stability" with him.
"We talked about stability... it wasn't confrontational at all," Joe Biden said.
China “has a difficult economic problem right now for a whole range of reasons that relate to international growth and lack thereof, and the policies that China has followed," he said, adding, “I don’t think it’s going to cause China to invade Taiwan, in fact maybe the opposite, probably doesn’t have the same capacity as it had before."
“I’m not going to sell China, material that would increase their capacity to make more nuclear weapons or engage in defense activities that are contrary to what is viewed as most people’s think was a positive development in the region,” he continued.
