Pakistan ‘one of the most dangerous nations,’ says Joe Biden

In a potential setback to Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif government’s bid to improve ties with the US, the latter’s President, Joe Biden, has described the former country as “one of the most dangerous” in the world. The reason: it holds “nuclear weapons without any cohesion.”

Biden’s remarks came at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Reception in Los Angeles, California, according to a White House press release. Not only Pakistan, he had a few harsh words about China as well. In fact, the remarks on Pakistan came as Biden was talking about the US foreign policy regarding China and Russia.

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Talking about the Chinese premier Xi Jinping, Biden said, “This is a guy who understands what he wants but has an enormous, enormous array of problems. How do we handle that? How do we handle that relative to what’s going on in Russia? And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion.”

“Enormous opportunities for the US”

At the event, Biden reportedly said the US had enormous opportunities to change the dynamic in the second quarter of the 21st century. “So, folks, there’s a lot going on. A lot going on. But there’s also enormous opportunities for the United States to change the dynamic in the second quarter of the 21st century,” he said.

Biden’s comments come within two days of the release of the US National Security Strategy. The 48-page document does not mention Pakistan. The Congress-mandated key policy document underlines the threat posed to the US by China and the Vladimir Putin-led Russia.

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China and Russia announced a “no-limits partnership” earlier this year. The National Security Strategy stated that the two nations are increasingly aligned with each other and the challenges they pose are distinct. “We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC (People’s Republic of China) while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia,” it added.

“Competition with China becoming global”

The policy document argued that competition with China was most pronounced in the Indo-Pacific, but it was also becoming increasingly global. The US Security Strategy highlighted that the next ten years will be a decisive decade of competition with China.

Regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the document said Moscow’s “imperialist foreign policy” culminated “in a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in an attempt to topple its government and bring it under Russian control.”

(With agency inputs)