China biggest threat to US since World War II, says US presidential hopeful Nikki Haley

Republican 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has called China the biggest threat to the United States since World War II.

Haley, who served as US ambassador to the UN under Donald Trump, made the claims during an interview with Fox News. The remarks came a fortnight after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a meeting with China's President Xi Jinping.

She said that China has been preparing for a war with the US for decades and that the latter is underprepared for the same.

"If you look at the military situation, they now have the largest naval fleet in the world," Haley said on Fox News Sunday.

"They have 340 ships, we have 293. They're going to have 400 In two years, we won't even have 350 in two decades. They have started developing hypersonic missiles. We're just now getting started."

Haley also lashed out at the US authorities for encouraging woke culture in the military. "They[China] are modernizing their military, our military's taking gender pronoun classes. Look at what they're doing on cyber, artificial intelligence, space — they're ahead of us," she said.

"We have some work to do and we do need to strengthen our military. We have to make sure, we are right," added Haley. She also accused China of "killing" Americans for not being able to restrict the fentanyl trade to the US.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid and has been responsible for the surge in deaths caused by fatal overdoses of the drug. Almost 80,000 people died last year in the US alone. The US government is working to stop fentanyl shipments into the country.

China is one of the major producers of the chemicals that are used in making fentanyl. Haley has called to revoke China's permanent normal trade relations status until it takes action to stop the smuggling of such chemicals into the US. This is not the first time that she has spoken about the alleged Chinese threat over the last few years.

Last week, she described China as "much more than a mere 'competitor' — Communist China is an enemy." Her comments have not gone down well with Beijing, according to a Reuters report.

A spokesman for China's embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, has called her remarks irresponsible and clarified that such statements do not benefit any of the parties.

"Pushing American companies to leave China runs counter to economic laws, and will ultimately harm everyone's interests," the spokesperson added.

"Only those who draw attention by smearing and blame-shifting in the election campaign will end up on the ash heap of history."

Tensions have been running high between the two countries since Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2017. During his campaign days, Trump threatened to brand China a currency manipulator.

He had also angered China by speaking to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen even before he took charge of the White House. China considers Taiwan its wayward province and does not approve of the island nation holding separate diplomatic relations with major countries.

The relationship between the two countries has not gotten any better since Joe Biden took over the presidency. Last week, he called Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator.He made the remarks at a fundraiser in California a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Xi.

"The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn't know it was there," said Biden.

"That's a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn't know what happened. That wasn't supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course," Biden added.

Earlier this year, a US fighter jet shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina. The incident has intensified tensions between the two countries.