Biden admits that China is racing ahead of the US
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US President Joe Biden has portrayed his infrastructure plan as a means of strengthening democracy. [Alex Wong/Getty Images]
President Joe Biden in an impassioned speech on Wednesday framed infrastructure as a matter of national security, saying that China was outpacing the US as he excoriated Republicans who opposed his $2 trillion plan.
After months of Republicans saying Biden is too soft on Beijing, the president is flipping the script. Biden has effectively accused the GOP of aiding China by pushing against his infrastructure proposal, which Republicans have dismissed as too costly.
"My Republican friends ... many of them say it's too big ... They say, 'Why not just focus on traditional infrastructure?'" Biden said of the GOP response to his plan. "We are America. We don't just fix for today; we build for tomorrow."
Biden's infrastructure plan aims to boost the US economy via investments in transportation, broadband, manufacturing, clean energy, and research and development in technology, among other areas and issues. The proposal focuses heavily on addressing climate change and would increase the corporate-tax rate.
"Do you think China is waiting around to invest in its digital infrastructure or research and development? I promise you, they are not waiting," Biden said. "But they are counting on American democracy to be too slow, too limited, and too divided to keep up the pace."
Biden said China and the rest of the world "are racing ahead of us in the investments they have in the future."
"America's no longer the leader of the world because we're not investing," he added.
"This generation can be marked by the competition between democracies and autocracies because the world is changing so rapidly," Biden said. "The autocrats are betting on democracy not being able to generate the kind of unity needed to make decisions to get in that race. We can't afford to prove them right."
"We have to show the world, but much more importantly, we have to show ourselves that democracy works," he added. "This is the United States of America, for God's sake."
Biden has made competing with China on the global stage a top foreign-policy priority.
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