Former President Joe Biden told a story about a conversation he had with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping during an appearance on the “Jay Leno’s Garage” podcast.
JOE BIDEN: America, when it was founded, got pretty lucky. For the first couple hundred years, we were between a place called Mexico that wasn’t much of a threat and a place called Canada, which is a great ally… Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Pacific coast on the other. I remember being with Xi Jinping, and I spent a lot of time with him breaking down that relationship. We were meeting. He said, “Why do you call yourself Pacific power?” I said, “We are a Pacific power.” And this is a true story. I said, “Look, what do you think China would be now if it weren’t for the United States being a Pacific power? Think you’d be where you are now?” He looked at me and said, “No.” I said, “We are more in the Pacific Ocean than all of China combined. We are a Pacific power, right? Period.” And we are. JAY LENO: Oh, yeah. Like, I remember after World War II, all the Germans wanted to surrender to Americans, not Russians, because they knew in America they’d get a fair shot. JOE BIDEN: Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. JAY LENO: I remember reading a book about some Japanese prisoners that were captured and came to America. And the first day at the meal, they were given meat, and they thought, “Oh, this is a trick. It’s poisoned meat. Don’t eat it.” Then they saw everybody eating it, and they realized, “Oh, well, maybe it’s not poison.” And then they were drinking Coca-Cola and eating hamburgers, and one of the Japanese who spoke English asked the prison guard, “Why do you treat us so well?” And the prison guard said, “Because someday we’re going to be friends.” JOE BIDEN: And you know, I like that. Absolutely like that kind of thinking. You know, everybody thought I was crazy when I was president. You have this horrible situation that lasted for decades where the South Koreans are allies of the Japanese, but hated each other, and ended up getting the South Koreans and the Japanese to bury the hatchet at Camp David 60 years later. And that made us a hell of a lot more secure, strong. The one thing that really bothers me about where many of my Republican friends are, even the ones that aren’t crazy, is they really underestimate the value of alliances. The reason why we’re so secure is because of NATO, for God’s sake. Attack on one’s attack on all. What happened on 9\/11? Who’s the first guys that came to ouraid? NATO.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n