Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine war had “thwarted” China’s ambitions to invade Taiwan.
The Democratic presidential nominee, who once served as the top U.S. diplomat, weighed in on Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, U.S.-China relations and The United States offered a harsh assessment. President Biden’s re-election prospects next year.
Clinton warned that Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024 would “herald the end of American democracy” and “the end of Ukraine”.
She described Putin as a “complex, messianic, narcissistic dictator”. She added that the Russian leader had believed that if Trump won the 2020 presidential election, he would withdraw the United States from NATO.
“It was a piece of cake for him, so when Trump didn’t win, he thought he had to move on.”
It turned out to be “absolutely wrong calculations,” she added.
Clinton said she believed Xi was reassessing his approach to Taiwan in light of Putin’s failure to quickly take over Ukraine.
She said she had previously assumed Xi would “take action against Taiwan” within three or four years of consolidating his power in China. But she added: “I think Ukraine really got in the way of that process. I mean, in my opinion, what happened in Ukraine had a big impact on the Chinese leadership.”
“Look, Trump is the gift that has been given to people like Xi Jinping and Putin,” Clinton added, attacking the man who defeated her in the 2016 election. “He’s . . . he’s so obsessed with authoritarianism that he can’t do anything about any strategic approach to China, and you know, he’ll obviously do whatever Putin wants for NATO.”
Clinton said she did not “believe” Trump would win the presidency in 2024. But she warned that if he did, it would be “the end of American democracy” and “the end of Ukraine”, warning Trump would pull the US out of NATO.
Clinton acknowledged that at 80, Biden’s age is a “question” that voters “have every right to consider.” But she paraphrased a line the president often quotes: “Don’t judge him by opposing the Almighty, but by opposing the alternative.”
Clinton also backed Biden’s push to push the Democratic National Committee to overhaul the party’s nominating process after the 2020 Iowa caucuses were delayed by a glitch in the ballot-counting app.
“Thank God they’re over, at least for the Democrats, because they deserve to be over,” Clinton said of the Iowa caucuses. “I won Iowa, and it’s still not a good idea. You know, get my people to vote.”