Biden Calls Xi a 'Dictator' Again After Meeting, '12 Months of Diplomacy Down the Toilet'
Biden Calls Xi a 'Dictator' Again After Meeting, '12 Months of Diplomacy Down the Toilet'
Reporters noted seeing Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, wincing after the remark.
U.S. President Joe Biden called his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, a dictator Wednesday after a meeting in San Francisco meant to ease tensions between the two superpowers that have been soaring over trade, the South China Sea, Taiwan, and wars in Ukraine and Israel.
Biden was asked by a reporter if he still believed Xi is a dictator after making the comment in June. Biden said Xi is a “dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours.”
Business Insider reported that cameras appeared to pick up U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wincing as the president continued.
The report noted that Italian diplomat Marco Carnelos took to X and posted, “Twelve months of hard work & diplomacy thrown in the toilet with a simple word."
The relationship between the U.S. and China is at a low point.
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., the newly elected Speaker of the House, who was championed as an America-First “MAGA” politician, has shown in his young speakership that he is an interventionist keen on confrontation with Washington’s greatest rivals.
Johnson appeared on Fox News several times in the days following his election and told Sean Hannity that China, Russia, and Iran make up the “axis of evil” and it is an increasingly dangerous time for the world.
“We have Israel being attacked, we have unrest, we have the Ukraine situation we’ve got to deal with, we have China being aggressive, we have Iran with all the meddling, and China, Russia, and Iran working together. This is a dangerous time,” he said, according to AntiWar.com.
He continued, “Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies of Iran, and they’re tied in now with Russia and China. I mean, it is a new axis of evil. That’s how we see it.”
He called the threat the U.S.’s largest since WWII.
Xi said Wednesday that China is willing to be “a partner and a friend” of the U.S.
“If we regard each other as the biggest rival, the most significant geopolitical challenge and an ever-pressing threat, it will inevitably lead to wrong policies, wrong actions and wrong results,” according to China’s Global Times.