By Derek Cai BBC News
US President Joe Biden has called Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator at a fundraiser in California.
His remarks come a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Mr Xi for talks in Beijing, which were aimed at easing tensions between the two superpowers.
Mr Xi said some progress had been made in Beijing, while Mr Blinken indicated both sides were open to more talks.
China is yet to respond to Mr Biden’s comments.
President Biden, at the fundraiser on Tuesday night local time, also said Mr Xi was embarrassed over the recent tensions around a Chinese spy balloon that had been blown off course over the US.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it, was he didn’t know it was there,” Mr Biden said.
“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened.”
Mr Blinken’s visit to Beijing - the first by a top US diplomat in almost five years - restarted high-level communications between the two countries. Both Mr Biden and Mr Xi hailed it as a welcome development. But Mr Blinken made clear that major differences remain between the two countries.
Washington and Beijing have long locked horns over an array of issues including trade, human rights, and Taiwan.
But relations have especially deteriorated in the past year. With the US election looming and tensions with China emerging as a political issue, some Republican senators have attacked the Biden administration for being “soft” on China.
I love how they spent months trying to convince China to reopen diplomatic relations, and then scuttled all the effort within 24 hours. 😂
This circus would be hilarious if the clowns did not have nukes and the biggest military in the world following their commands.
indeed, nothing like having a geriatric who doesn’t know where he is half the time hold the nuclear codes that could end human civilization
Biden’s response when asked about the impact of the dictator remark on US-China relations:
“The idea of my choosing and avoiding saying what I think is the facts with regard to the relationship with … China is, is just not something I am going to change very much,”
Like huh ? Would honestly recommend looking up the video of this one cause it’s even more baffling hearing it. Then goes on to say:
"I don’t think it’s had any real consequence”
How can he just decide that’s the case, wasn’t the vibe I got when the Chinese FM spokesperson described it as an “open provocation”.
Basically if we unpack what he’s saying there is that he thinks US has leverage over China, and he thinks that he can say whatever he wants because China’s gonna have to bow down. This was the same logic that was used when Russia said that admitting Ukraine into NATO was a red line.
Yes, this is it.
I think that Parenti got it right in his lecture about the US war on Yugoslavia. He said that the US does not do traditional diplomacy, but issues a set of demands instead and uses violence when the other side does not obey. Then they claim that it is their fault that violence happened.
This is arrogant barbarism tolerated only because of their economic and military dominance over the world. If any other nation acted that way, they would most likely be ridiculed and put in their place.
Yup, and now US bit off more than they can chew in Ukraine due to sheer arrogance. Amazingly, it seems that nothing has been learned from that debacle and they’re trying to provoke China before having even finished losing to Russia. Absolutely incredible stuff.
surely having a man so old that his mental faculties have completely rotted won’t be harming foreign relations hahaha i hate it here
I mean, at some point as a head of state you probably just ignore anything he says.
It’s amazing that liberals think this man is any less verbally unhinged than Trump in the ways that are meaningful and relevant to being a president of a country.
Trump at least knew of to look like he knew what he was saying. He was a decent orator and could at least entertain a crowd. Biden is seriously less articulated and coherent than some people i work with, and i am an educator specialized in polyhandicap
i mean, if you look at the footage of diplomatic meetings you can see very obviously by Xi’s body language that he takes the presidents of nations like Barbados or Zambia much more seriously than people like Biden or Trudeau
The United States is a deeply unserious country.
Every now and then they produce idiocy like this for their internal usage, and then they seem to really be completely surprised when the rest of the world take note.
If Xi sent the balloons it’s proof of his evil schemes. If Xi didn’t send the balloons it’s because he failed to keep his regime in line. He can’t win no matter what he does lol
Parenti Quote
I wish we had a Parenti bot. Nonfalsifiable Orthodoxy etc etc.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
We do have a Parenti bot. Ahem Parenti quote.
From now on, Biden should be referred to exclusively as “racist senile fuck.”
I personally prefer “Jim Crow Joe”.
I like how he brings up the balloons after he already Admitted those balloons weren’t Chinese spy balloons earlier this year. lol
Are box cars an official term of measurement in the states now? Man, the imperial measurement systems are weird.
“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened.”
Unlike Biden, President Xi is pretty aware of what is happening in and around his country. I have little doubt he knew what happened to the balloon, but I also can’t imagine he was particularly embarrassed about it. He wasn’t the one who missed shooting at a freaking balloon.
Fun fact: entire F-22 program cost 80 billion dollars so far, and for that price, their complete list of air victories is:
