Biden’s comments brought up the spy balloon incident again, which government officials have been trying to put behind them since the president signaled a thaw in relations in May.
The White House is not backing down on President Joe Biden’s comments comparing Chinese President Xi Jinping to a dictator.
“It should come as no surprise that the President is open about China and the differences between us. We are certainly not alone in this,” a senior administration official said in a statement to the Voice of America On Wednesday.
At a fundraiser for his 2024 presidential campaign in California on Tuesday, Biden said Xi was unaware and ashamed of an alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over US soil and shot down the US military in February.
“This is a great shame for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. When they overthrew him, he was very ashamed. He denied he was there,” Biden explained.
China’s Foreign Ministry responded that Biden’s comments “seriously violated China’s political dignity and amounted to a public political provocation.”
Also Read: Biden Calls Chinese President Xi Jinping a ‘Dictator’
“The relevant comments from the US side are extremely absurd and irresponsible and seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocol and China’s political dignity,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a briefing.
“China is extremely dissatisfied with this and strongly opposes it,” he added.
The press is generally prohibited from recording such fundraisers, but the White House provided a transcript of Biden’s comments.
The comments were particularly notable as they came a day after Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken visited Beijing to repair bilateral ties that had hit an all-time low. Blinken’s visit, originally scheduled for February, was postponed by Washington following the destruction of the spy balloon.
While Blinken’s visit yielded no major breakthroughs, he and Xi agreed to protect the US-China rivalry from escalating into conflict.
Also Read: Blinken Stresses Need for Direct Involvement in US-China Talks
Washington dismisses the notion that Biden’s comments are counterproductive to his top diplomat’s efforts.
“We will continue to conduct this relationship responsibly, we will keep lines of communication open with the People’s Republic of China, but of course that doesn’t mean we won’t address our differences openly and directly,” a State Department spokesman told Vedant Patel in a statement to his briefing on Wednesday. .
“We have made very clear where we differ, including the clear differences we see between democracies and autocracies,” he added.
Biden’s comments brought up the spy balloon incident again, which government officials have been trying to put behind them since the president signaled a thaw in relations in May after a meeting between White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and the chief diplomat with the Communist Party Chinas, Wang Yi.
internal pressure
Biden is facing internal pressure from Republicans in Congress, who have tried to portray his administration as weak on China and labeled efforts to improve ties with Beijing as weak
Last week, a group of Republican senators sent a letter to Biden demanding public accountability for his administration’s assessment of the spy balloon and expressing frustration that he was facing “blatant threats to the security and sovereignty of the United States by China.” was not opposed”.
Also Read: Poll Reflects Fears in Asia Over US-China Tensions
“Republicans are not going to let it go because it gives them extra ammunition,” said Michael Swaine, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “There are snipers in the party, people in Congress who think they know best how to handle relations when they don’t,” he told the press. VOA.
growing tensions
The bitter rhetoric shows the difficulty of defusing tensions and rekindling communication between the two rivals.
“If the compromises we’re seeing are followed by such direct criticism from senior officials, I think the Chinese side will first question what the point of the compromise is,” said Zack Cooper, a fellow at the company’s American Institute .
“I think there’s probably going to be some pretty difficult talks between Beijing and Washington over the next few days and weeks,” Cooper told VOA.
Moscow also condemned Biden’s statements. On Wednesday, the Kremlin said the comments reflected the US government’s “unpredictable” foreign policy.
“This is a very contradictory statement by US foreign policy that indicates a significant element of unpredictability,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
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