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China loomed large in the debate, but largely as a caricatured place of shady deals and a deadly virus.

China was a frequent touchpoint in the debate, but largely as a caricatured place of shady deals and a deadly virus.

President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. each tried to score points by linking the other to China at their debate Thursday.Credit...Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

For a few fleeting moments on Thursday night, it looked as though President Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. might actually debate the nation’s greatest foreign policy challenge: its relationship with China.

But Mr. Trump quickly pivoted the conversation to unsubstantiated allegations that Mr. Biden enriched himself through his son’s dealings with Chinese officials. Mr. Biden, seeking to assert his tough-on-China credentials, recalled a trip to Beijing in 2013 when he pushed back on China’s attempt to control a wide swath of airspace in the contested East China Sea by requiring foreign planes to identify themselves when they flew through it.

The move ignited tensions with Japan, a key American ally, and Mr. Biden warned President Xi Jinping to show restraint. On Thursday, Mr. Biden referred to Mr. Xi as a thug and accused Mr. Trump of cozying up to him.

That was as far as the candidates got in discussing what many analysts view as one of the world’s most dangerous flash points — a place where Chinese and American warships might someday fire on each other.

For the rest of the night, China became a watchword for allegations of shady business dealings, a deadly virus, and a carbon-glutted atmosphere, which Mr. Trump described as “filthy.”

Their exchanges on trade captured the caricatured role that China has played in the campaign. Mr. Trump repeated his erroneous claim that China is paying the United States billions of dollars because of his tariffs. In fact, most of those costs are passed on to American consumers.

Mr. Biden claimed that the American trade deficit with China had gone up, not down, during the Trump presidency — not true, given the protectionist measures that Mr. Trump imposed.

The president said he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord because it did not impose the same demands on China, and other major developing economies, as it did on the United States.

Mr. Biden said he would rejoin the accord specifically to hold China to the pledges it made under that agreement. “We need to be having the rest of our friends with us saying to China — these are the rules,” Mr. Biden said. “You play by them or you’re going to pay the price for not playing by them, economically.”

Though China loomed large over trade, climate, and geopolitics, Mr. Trump kept the focus on allegations that Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, had tried to cash in with the Chinese on his father’s name.

Mr. Biden fired back, noting the report in The New York Times that Mr. Trump had an undisclosed bank account in China.

“I have many bank accounts and they’re all listed and they’re all over the place,” Mr. Trump replied. “I was a businessman doing business.”

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief. In 27 years at The Times, he has been bureau chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, European economic correspondent, and a business reporter in New York. More about Mark Landler

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