In the speech, he stepped up attacks on China on multiple grounds, including accusing Beijing of interfering in the US midterm elections. He says the speech was vetted by Trump and was meant to send the “right” message to China.

Political bias and lies’: China hits back at Pence over criticism

Pence also tries to polish his China credentials with accounts of his brief encounters with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

After the group photo at the end of the Asean summit in Singapore in November 2018, Pence was stopped by Li, who questioned Trump’s China policy.

“I listened to him as he explained to me that a different set of rules applied to China and the United States should be willing to accommodate its status as a ‘developing nation’. I looked him in the eyes and said, ‘Mr Li, things have got to change,’” he wrote.

“And as the translator converted my words to Chinese, I said it again slowly: ‘Things have got to change.’”

A few days later, Pence met Xi during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, when he delivered Trump’s message to Xi that China had to open its markets to the US.

Pence said he also delivered a friendly message from Trump to Xi.

“He wanted me to tell you that he likes you very much,” Pence told Xi, according to the book. “Xi told me he liked Trump very much, too.”

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Donald Trump announces 2024 presidential bid despite Republican misgivings after US midterm polls

Donald Trump announces 2024 presidential bid despite Republican misgivings after US midterm polls

Overall, Pence takes pride in having been part of Trump’s China policy. “Besides enumerating China’s economic offences, I reminded the world of its military expansion in the South China Sea, the state censorship blocking the flow of liberating information to its citizens, the persecution of Chinese Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists, and the Chinese government’s attempted interference in the US midterm elections.”

He has said, though, that he believes the US “will have better choices” than Trump.

Chengxin Pan, an associate professor of political science at the University of Macau, said Pence was laying out his China policy credentials in the book in the belief that a hard line on Beijing would be an important leadership quality in the next presidential election.

“More broadly, there is little sign that the deep and structural differences between the two countries will be resolved any time soon. If anything, probably it could only get more intense. So I think the China factor will feature prominently in the 2024 presidential race,” Pan said.

“Getting tough on China is about the only thing both Democrats and Republicans, and both traditional China hawks and traditional moderates in Washington DC can now agree on.”

Pence accuses China of trying to undermine Trump

Yun Sun, a China expert at the Washington-based Stimson Centre, said Pence was more vocal on China than previous vice-presidents, and would be one of the candidates competing for the Republican presidential nomination.

Sun also agreed that whoever the candidate was, they were unlikely to be supportive of China.

“The China discussion in the US will not head in a positive direction, regardless of which party or which candidate. I doubt anyone will be willing to sound friendly or supportive of China,” she said.

He said the information from Beijing was “little more than lies”.

“Government to government, the United States was told by China that the virus was contained. Doctors in China who attempted to speak out about how contagious the new coronavirus was were silenced. The Chinese government was denying to global health officials that there was evidence of human-to-human transmission,” Pence wrote.