Joe Biden can't stop thinking about China and the future of American democracy

White House aides were prepping President Joe Biden to virtually tour an electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant last week when the President suddenly shifted the conversation to something else entirely: China and the fate of democracy.

Sitting in the Oval Office, one of Biden's economic advisers had just pointed out that China was dominating the battery market, launching the President into a riff about the need to make the necessary investments to counter China's dominance in that industry. But for Biden, this was about more than batteries. It was another example of what he views as a critical task of his presidency: Proving that democracy works amid the rise of brutally efficient autocracies.