Biden address exposes his ignorance about China story

In his State of the Union address, US President Joe Biden not only touted his "achievements", saying the United States is in the "best state" in decades, but also hyped up the China threat to attract public support.

However, the internal and external situations his address tried to portray are not in line with reality. According to the Washington Post and ABC News, about 40 percent of Americans say they are financially worse off than they were when Biden became president, while only 16 percent say they are better off now. A latest poll also indicates that 62 percent of Americans believe that Biden has achieved "not much" or "little" in the past two years, 65 percent believe that the US is going down the "wrong road", and Biden's approval rating has fallen to 41 percent, close to the lowest since he became president.

In his speech, Biden tried to convince US residents that the US had reversed its loss of influence in the world, but the reality fails to support his assertion. The widening gap between the rich and poor, political polarization, intensified partisan rivalry, social fragmentation, abuse of drugs and guns, serious racial discrimination, police violence, governance dysfunction, and social disorder have become increasingly serious in the US. According to a Pew survey, nearly half of Americans believe that the US' global influence and soft power have been declining in recent years, only 19 percent believe the US influence is "increasing".

While playing up the threat of increased competition, Biden also tried to downplay China's development prospects, but this only shows his limited knowledge of China. Over the past three years, China's economy has grown at an average annual rate of 4.5 percent, much higher than the world average of 1.8 percent and faster than that of the US, the eurozone and Japan.

The International Monetary Fund recently raised its forecast for China's economic growth in 2023 to 5.2 percent from 4.4 percent earlier.

The US is facing multiple challenges, from the alarm of its debt level reaching the upper limit to high prices that have plagued people's lives and to the looming risk of economic recession. What the Biden administration really needs to do is to face up to the US' problems and solve them, rather than make trouble with China.