China says Biden calling Xi Jinping a dictator is ‘provocation’
CHINA said US President Joe Biden had made a “public political provocation” by referring to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a dictator, as fresh tensions emerged in bilateral ties days after the two sides held meetings to stabilise relations.
“These remarks are absurd and extremely irresponsible,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday (Jun 21).
“It is against the basic facts and diplomatic protocols, seriously violates China’s political dignity and amounts to public political provocation,” she added. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and opposition.”
Biden told a crowd at a California fundraiser on Tuesday that the Chinese leader had been embarrassed by an alleged spy balloon that floated over the US earlier this year, which Washington shot down. That debacle caused US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing, and sent the US-China relationship into a tailspin.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it, is he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said. “That’s what the great embarrassment for dictators – when they didn’t know what happened.”
Blinken became the most senior American official to visit China in five years this week, on a rescheduled trip that was praised by both sides as a success and laid the groundwork for a potential meeting between Biden and Xi.
The US President’s comments – and China’s response – show how fragile ties remain between the world’s two largest economies, which have fundamental disagreements on issues spanning human rights and technology to trade and weapons sales to Taiwan.
Mao reiterated China’s position that the balloon incident was “an unexpected, sporadic event caused by force majeure.” BLOOMBERG
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