The insult against China’s leader was merely a matter of the US president speaking candidly, America’s top diplomat has claimed
US President Joe Biden’s controversial comment last week referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a “dictator” came right at the time Washington was making a diplomatic push to mend ties with Beijing, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed the affront won’t hinder his reconciliation efforts.
At issue was Biden’s claim at a political fundraiser that Xi hadn’t known about an alleged spy balloon that was shot down after straying over US airspace in February. “That’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” the US president said.
The comment came just one day after Blinken concluded a long-awaited visit to Beijing, where he landed a rare meeting with Xi to help ease tensions between the countries.