San Francisco, CA
CNN
—
President Joe Biden compared Chinese President Xi Jinping to “dictators” during a political fundraiser in California on Tuesday night, making the unscripted remarks about a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that his recent trip had given “progress” in repairing the fractured relationship between Washington and Beijing.
“The reason Xi Jinping was so upset when I shot down the balloon with two wagons full of spy equipment is that he didn’t know it was there. No, I’m serious. This is a great shame for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden told the Bay Area fundraiser, referring to the Chinese spy balloon that the US shot down earlier this year.
The president’s seemingly off-message remarks come at a particularly tense time in U.S.-China relations. Washington’s top diplomat said Monday that the United States and China had made “progress” toward restoring relations with both sides agreeing on the need to “stabilize” their bilateral relationship.
China quickly criticized Biden’s comments, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning calling them “open political provocation” and “extremely absurd and irresponsible” on Wednesday.
“The comments gravely contradict basic facts, gravely violate diplomatic etiquette, and gravely infringe on China’s political dignity,” Mao said.
CNN has reached out to the White House about the president’s comment.
Biden in his remarks also praised Blinken’s work to repair the relationship, reiterating that he “did a good job” and adding that improving the relationship “would take time.” At a second fundraiser on Tuesday, Biden told donors that US climate envoy John Kerry is also expected to make a trip to China “very soon” focusing on the environment.
Blinken, who is the first US secretary of state to visit Beijing in five years, recently wrapped up two days of meetings in the Chinese capital with senior officials, including Xi, that have not resulted in major breakthroughs, but rather deals ‘both sides to continue. more diplomatic engagements.
“We’re not going to be successful on every issue between us on any given day, but in a whole variety of areas, on the terms that we set out for this trip, we’ve made progress and we’re making progress,” Blinken said. Monday at the press conference in Beijing.
And Biden, for his part, told reporters as recently as this weekend that he hopes to meet with Xi in the “next few months.”
The president on Tuesday elaborated on some of the tensions between the two superpowers. He said that while China’s leader was “embarrassed” by the balloon incident, what he was “really upset about” were Biden’s efforts since taking office to bring the leaders of the Quad (U.S. , India, Australia and Japan) serve as a counterweight to a more assertive China.
“He called me and told me not to do it because it was putting him in trouble,” Biden said, referring to the Chinese president. “We’re just trying to make sure that the international rules of air and sea lanes remain open.”
China has said the balloon was a civilian aircraft that accidentally went off course; Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao repeated a similar line on Wednesday, before accusing the US of “distorting the facts”.
The White House’s increased engagement with leaders of the Quad, formally known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is part of a broader U.S. strategy to elevate its diplomatic outreach to South Pacific countries and re-engage- se with this part of the world.
The region has taken on greater importance for Washington as China has become increasingly assertive about its territorial claims in the area, expanding its naval capabilities and militarizing islands in the South China Sea.
“Now we have India, Australia, Japan and the United States working hand in hand in the South China Sea, in the Indian Ocean. We have a situation where I have met with 50 of the major maritime states in East Asia,” Biden said in California.
