When President Joe Biden referred to his Chinese counterpart as a dictator late Tuesday in California, the response from Beijing was swift and angry.
“The remarks seriously contradict basic facts, seriously violate diplomatic etiquette, and seriously infringe on China’s political dignity,” the spokesperson for the foreign ministry said.
Whether the new acrimony further derails a “thaw” in US-China ties, something that Biden has openly hoped for, remained an open question.
Officials at the White House didn’t rush to clarify Biden’s remark. And while some US officials expressed surprise after reading the president’s quotes, there was little to indicate he misspoke while detailing his view of the spy balloon incident earlier this year that temporarily caused a pause in US-China relations.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it is he didn’t know it was there,” Biden told Democratic donors underneath a white tent in a backyard in Marin County. “No, I’m serious. That was the great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened.”
Biden’s assessment that President Xi Jinping had been in the dark about the balloon accurately reflects US intelligence about the episode, one person familiar with the matter said. But revealing that information in public – as Biden has done twice now over the past few days – caught some officials off guard since it had previously only been the private assessment of the situation.
“He didn’t know about it,” Biden told donors. “When it got shot down he was very embarrassed and he denied it was even there.”
Perhaps more surprising than the content of Biden’s remarks, however, was their timing. Biden was speaking at a fragile moment for US-China ties, days after a…
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