Not seeking conflict with China or Russia: Biden

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he was not seeking conflict with China or Russia as he put a renewed focus on diplomacy in his first address to Congress.

In a speech focused on selling major investments at home, Biden told lawmakers who months earlier had dodged a deadly insurrection that they needed to show democracy can work. "We´re in a competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century," Biden said, warning: "Autocrats think democracies can´t compete."

Biden said he told President Xi Jinping in a two-hour first phone conversation after taking office: "We welcome the competition -- and that we are not looking for conflict." "But I made absolutely clear that we will defend America´s interests across the board," he said.

"America will stand up to unfair trade practices that undercut American workers and industries, like subsidies for state-owned enterprises and the theft of American technologies and intellectual property," he said.

"I also told President Xi that we will maintain a strong military presence in the Indo-Pacific just as we do with Nato in Europe -- not to start a conflict but to prevent one," Biden said to applause from an unusually small audience due to corona restrictions.

In an aside that was not in prepared remarks, Biden noted his extensive dealings with Xi when both were vice presidents -- and warned that China´s most powerful leader in years had firm plans for the future.

"He´s deadly earnest on becoming the most significant, consequential nation in the world," Biden said. The speech marked a shift from the hawkish nationalism of his predecessor Donald Trump, with Biden repeatedly speaking of global cooperation.

"There is no wall high enough to keep the virus out," Biden said, alluding to Trump´s cherished wall on the Mexican border. Similar to his message on China, Biden said he did not seek worse relations with Russia.

In his first three months in office, Biden has imposed sanctions over Russia´s purported poisoning of ailing dissident Alexei Navalny and over its alleged interference in US elections and hacking operations.

But Biden has also proposed a summit in a third country with President Vladimir Putin to bring stability to relations and pointed in his speech to cooperation on climate change and the extension of New Start, the last Cold War nuclear reduction treaty.

"I made very clear to Putin that we are not going to seek escalation but their actions will have consequences," Biden said. Flipping the language of George W Bush when used the same platform nearly two decades ago to assail an "axis of evil," Biden vowed diplomacy on the "serious threat" of the nuclear programmes of both Iran and North Korea.

"We´ll be working closely with our allies to address the threats posed by both of these countries through diplomacy and stern deterrence,´" Biden said.

The United States is holding indirect talks with Iran in Vienna in a bid to re-enter a denuclearisation accord trashed by Trump. The Biden administration is separately reviewing policy on North Korea after Trump´s unusually personal diplomacy that included three meetings with leader Kim Jong Un.

Vowing to exert US leadership, Biden also said he was reasserting US priorities by ending "the forever war" in Afghanistan -- where he is pulling out remaining troops after 20 years. "We went to Afghanistan to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11," he told lawmakers, with millions watching on television.

"We delivered justice to Osama bin Laden and we degraded the terrorist threat of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. After 20 years of American valour and sacrifice, it’s time to bring our troops home,” he said.

Biden warned that as the US exits its longest war in Afghanistan, it will remain vigilant against emerging threats around the globe. “The terrorist threat has evolved beyond Afghanistan since 2001, and we will remain vigilant against threats to the United States,” he said.

In his 70-minute address, Biden sought to sell an ambitious agenda to the American people --from climate change and infrastructure to his just-announced $1.8 trillion package of investments in schooling, child care and aid to families, backed by tax hikes for the rich. His address focused on the economy and made the argument that a robust spending and jobs plan is crucial to the US economy competing globally.