US-China tensions: Biden called Xi a dictator a day after the Beijing talks

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June 21, 2023, 02:12 GMT

Updated 1 hour ago

photo caption,

US President Joe Biden made the remarks in California on Tuesday

US President Joe Biden called Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator at a fundraising event in California.

His comments came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met President Xi for talks in Beijing, which were aimed at easing tensions between the two superpowers.

Biden also said that the Chinese president was embarrassed after the United States shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon.

China said it “resolutely opposes” Biden’s comments.

“The reason Xi Jinping was so upset, in terms of when I launched that balloon with two box cars full of spy gear in it, is because he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said at the event on Tuesday.

“This is a great embarrassment for the dictators. When they didn’t know what happened,” he added.

The balloon, which China says was monitoring the weather, drifted across the American continent before US military aircraft destroyed it in February.

Washington later said it was part of a sprawling Chinese intelligence-gathering programme. Mr. Blinken, who was supposed to visit Beijing at the time, postponed the trip in the wake of the accident.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called Biden’s remarks “extremely ridiculous and irresponsible.” Speaking at a regularly scheduled news conference on Wednesday, she said the comments were an “outright political provocation” that violated diplomatic etiquette.

The weekend visit by Blinken, the first by a US secretary of state in nearly five years, restarted high-level contacts between the two countries.

Mr. Xi said some progress had been made in Beijing, while Mr. Blinken indicated that both sides were open to further talks. However, there are still major differences between the two countries.

Relations have deteriorated in the wake of the Trump-era trade war, Beijing’s assertive claims over Taiwan and the alleged shooting down of a spy balloon.

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