Nikki Haley says Biden doesn't criticize China by sharing clip from news conference where the president ripped into Xi Jinping

• Nikki Haley on Thursday accused Biden of thinking it's unnecessary to criticize China.

• This came after a news conference where Biden said Xi doesn't have a democratic "bone in his body."

• Haley criticized Biden's stance on China while sharing a clip from the same news conference.

• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Nikki Haley on Thursday accused President Joe Biden of being weak on China by sharing a selectively edited clip from his first news conference as commander-in-chief, in which the president bashed Chinese leader Xi Jinping for not having a democratic "bone in his body."

"Biden doesn't think it's necessary to criticize China-a country actively committing genocide-for wanting to become the most powerful country in the world," Haley, who served as the US ambassador to the United Nations under the Trump administration, said in a tweet along with the clip.

"His weak leadership is going to have disastrous effects on America's future," Haley added. The clip she shared did not include Biden's full comments on China from the news conference, during which the president explicitly vowed to confront Beijing on an array of issues while working to derail its goal of becoming the world's most powerful country.

Republicans like Haley have frequently sought to paint Biden as soft on China. But Biden's policy toward China has not veered drastically from former President Donald Trump's, though he's taken a less belligerent tone toward Beijing. Biden, for example, has kept Trump-era tariffs on China in place.

Biden's administration has also made it a top priority to challenge China on the global stage on issues like human rights and trade, as the president underscored during Thursday's news conference.

"They have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world. That's not gonna happen on my watch," Biden said.

"This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies," he added. "We have to prove that democracy works."

The president also said he told Xi that "as long as you and your country continue to so blatantly violate human rights, we are going to continue in an unrelenting way to call it to the attention of the world, and make it clear, make it clear, what's happening. And he understood that."

These remarks came roughly a week after Biden said he was "proud" of Secretary of State Antony Blinken for publicly confronting China's top diplomat during a meeting in Alaska about human rights abuses in Xinjiang and attacks on democracy in Hong Kong, among other issues. The Biden administration also unveiled new sanctions against two Chinese officials earlier this week over what Blinken described as "genocide" against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

The US-China relationship deteriorated rapidly over the past few years amid a trade war sparked by Trump and as Xi became increasingly authoritarian on the domestic front. The former president also blamed the Chinese government for the coronavirus pandemic, controversially calling COVID-19 the "China virus," which also increased tensions. Some have described the escalating geopolitical standoff as the beginnings of a "new Cold War."

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