China has responded with outrage after US president Joe Biden called his counterpart Xi Jinping a “dictator” in a row that threatens the nascent attempt to stabilise the deteriorating relationship between the powers.
Biden said at a campaign fundraising event on Tuesday that Xi had not known about an alleged spy balloon that flew over the US this year. The incident sent bilateral ties plunging to the lowest point in decades.
“That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” the US president told about 130 supporters at a gathering at a private home in California.
The Chinese foreign ministry described Biden’s remarks as “extremely absurd and irresponsible”, adding that they “seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocols and China’s political dignity”.
It also described the US president’s comments at the fundraiser as “open political provocations”.
Biden added of Xi: “[The balloon] was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States. And he didn’t know about it. When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed. He denied it was even there.”
His comments came in the same week that Antony Blinken — the first US secretary of state to visit Beijing since 2018 — met Xi in an effort to repair ties.
One day before speaking at the fundraising event, Biden had praised Blinken for doing a “hell of a job” in China, adding that efforts to improve relations were “on the right trail”.
But the US president has a history of gaffes and remarks about world leaders that have complicated American foreign policy.
While campaigning for the White House in 2020, Biden called Xi a “thug”, adding that China’s leader “doesn’t have a democratic — with a small d — bone in his body”.
In March 2022, he said Russian president Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”, comments the White House later said were not a reference to regime change.
Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund, said that while the comments might not cause a “visible setback” in US-China relations. they could harm the ties between the presidents, particularly in the wake of previous remarks from Biden about defending Taiwan and other statements that have irked Beijing.
“The personal relationship between the two leaders . . . has eroded in the past few years in part due to President Biden’s insistence that he would defend Taiwan and his 2023 State of the Union speech in which he mocked Xi Jinping, saying that no leader would want to be in his shoes.”
The timing of Biden’s latest comments is expected to anger Xi, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, who on Monday said he saw “progress” in bilateral relations, after meeting Blinken in Beijing.
Blinken also said at the end of his visit that the two countries had taken a “positive step” towards building “better lines of communication” to help ensure that “competition doesn’t veer into conflict”.
The Blinken visit followed months of plunging relations after Blinken postponed his plans following the spy balloon incident. In recent weeks, the two powers’ warships and aircraft narrowly missed each other during manoeuvres near Taiwan and in the South China Sea, raising the prospect of accidents that could escalate into conflict.
Chinese officials often complain that the US seeks dialogue but then engages in actions that they regard as provocative, such as the introduction of new tech export controls or inflammatory rhetoric.
By contrast, Washington has stressed the importance of maintaining open channels of discussion no matter the differences between the two countries.
Blinken also said this week he had raised concerns with China about alleged electronic spying facilities in Cuba. The Wall Street Journal reported that Beijing and Havana had reached a tentative deal for a new electronic eavesdropping facility in Cuba, roughly 350km from Florida.
The Biden administration initially disputed the report but later said China had been conducting electronic espionage from Cuba since at least 2019.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Biden’s remarks.
Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Beijing and Thomas Hale in Shanghai
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