US cannot “get
tough” with China because it depends on it for a modern way of life,
Indian-American Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said,
asserting that Washington needs to declare economic independence from Beijing.
The 38-year-old
multimillionaire biotech entrepreneur made the comment on Wednesday during the
Republican Party’s third presidential debate in Miami, Florida.
Indian-American Presidential
candidate Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott participated in
the debate. Former US President Donald Trump, who is leading the race, did not
participate in the debate again.
“Here’s why we can’t
get tough with China. It’s because we depend on them for our modern way of
life. And we have to declare economic independence from our enemy,” Ramaswamy
said.
“That’s the
Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson, at the age of 33, would have
signed. And today, if he were alive, that’s the Declaration of Independence
that I will sign as the next President,” Ramaswamy said in response to a
question.
Underlining that
the actual defence industrial base of the US depends on China for the supply
chain, he said, “For the F-35 jets, for the ships that we’re building. Think
about this. Why are we stockpiling that if it isn’t to actually be strong
against our enemy, China? We depend on them for that. Just like we depend on
them for pharmaceuticals. Just like we depend on them for semiconductors.”
“We need
politicians who are independent of the forces that increase our dependence on
China. My message to Xi Jinping is this, you are done buying land in this
country. You will not donate to universities in this country. US businesses won’t
expand into the Chinese market until you play by the same set of rules,” said Ramaswamy.
He added, “I think
we have to, at minimum, be able to meet our AUKUS agreement standards. Right
now, we are at risk of not even being able to meet our AUKUS standards with
Australia and UK. So, what we need to do is have a plan that reverses the
trajectory of the divest to invest programme by 20 per cent over the next three
years.”
The AUKUS pact is
a trilateral alliance between UK, US and Australia, seen as a counter to an
aggressive China in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
During the debate,
Ramaswamy alleged that fellow Indian-American Republican presidential candidate
Haley called China a great friend of America while serving as the US Ambassador
to the UN, “When she was UN Ambassador, called them literally her words, not
my, ‘Our great friend’. You can’t be fair-weather fans of the right policy. Get
to the root cause. Even US companies in Silicon Valley are regularly doing it,”
he said.
Haley denied the
allegations.
“When he talks
about me praising China, he doesn’t know the fact that the reason China was
praised was because I negotiated with China and Russia the largest set of
sanctions against North Korea in a generation,” she said.
“That is literally
the reason North Korea stopped testing ballistic missiles. So, I said China did
good on their part. That was a negotiation you could never – had fought against
China my entire career at the United Nations,” she added.
“…By making sure
no one could get any agency heads in the UN. I did it by making sure that we
called them out on human rights. I did it by making sure that we held them
accountable for everything that they did. That’s the reason we got out of the
Human Rights Council. That’s the reason we called them out,” Haley said in
defence.
The two Indian
Americans clashed on the debate stage multiple times. It started when Ramaswamy
called Haley, former US vice president Dick Cheney in three-inch heels. The
former South Carolina governor was the only woman on the debate stage.
“You have the
likes of Nikki Haley, who stepped down from her time at the UN, bankrupt or in
debt is – was her family. Then, she becomes a military contractor. She joins
the board of Boeing and otherwise. And is now a multi-millionaire. So I think
that that’s wrong when Republicans do it or Democrats do it. That’s the choice
we face,” he alleged.
“Do you want a
leader from a different generation who’s going to put this country first, or do
you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels?” commented Ramaswamy.
Haley blasted Ramaswamy
when her turn came soon thereafter.
“Yes. I’d first
like to say they’re five-inch heels, and I don’t wear them unless you can run
in them. The second thing that I will say is: that I wear heels. They’re not
for a fashion statement. They’re for ammunition,” Haley said amidst cheers from
the audience.
She also blasted Ramaswamy,
asking him not to bring her daughters into the debate.
Ramaswamy
mentioned her daughter during the portion of the debate that discussed the ban
on TikTok.
Talking about the
multiple bills signed in August by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis prohibiting
Chinese citizens from purchasing land in the State, Ramaswamy said, “Bring in
the CCP to South Carolina. What he left out though, Ron, and to be honest about
it, there was a lobbying-based exemption in that bill that allowed Chinese
nationals to buy land within a 20-mile radius of a military base lobbied for by
one of your donors. So, I think we have to call a spade a spade.”
Ramaswamy also
asserted that his administration would ban any US company from transferring
data to the Chinese.
“Here is a story
most people don’t know. Airbnb hands over US user data to the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP). Now, that’s a US-owned company. So, this is the problem when you
have Republicans that temporarily go the way the winds blow, and now it’s
popular to talk tough on China,” he said.
Speaking about
Tiktok, he said, “Cut the virtue signalling. The fact of the matter is
Democrats are on TikTok today. The only person, one of the few people who is
putting up content the way the actual algorithms work, speaking for pro-Israel
views or others, is me.”
PTI
