The US may very well end up in a "war" with China, former president Donald Trump warned on Wednesday, saying that Beijing no longer respects America which now has a "weak and corrupt" government.
Trump's comments came as top officials from China and the US are due to hold talks in Switzerland amid heightened tensions over the Chinese army conducting a record number of air drills close to Taiwan, a self-ruled island which Beijing views as a breakaway province.
The world's two largest economies have spent 18 months embroiled in a bitter trade dispute that imposed tit-for-tat levies on each other's commodities, mechanical parts and finished goods. Trump had launched a trade war with China in 2018 demanding Beijing to reduce the massive trade deficit.
The relations between China and the US are at an all time low. The two countries are currently engaged in a bitter confrontation over various issues, including trade, the origins of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the communist giant's aggressive military moves in the disputed South China Sea and human rights.
“Because the election was rigged, and America now has weak and corrupt leadership, we may very well end up in a war with China who no longer respects the USA,” Trump, a Republican, said in a statement, attacking his successor President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
They witnessed firsthand "our generals' complete surrender to the Taliban with the loss of 13 great warriors and the handing over of USD 85 billion of the best and most expensive Military equipment in the World— China and Russia are already reverse engineering the equipment so they can build it for themselves,” Trump said.
The US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in August, ending its two-decade-long military war in the war-torn country. Attack by two suicide bombers and a gunmen outside the Kabul airport at the height of evacuation on August 26 left 13 US marines along with over 150 civilians dead.
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