Senior American leaders were taken by surprise and shocked by Joe Biden’s statement about his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
Concerned by the unexpected turn of events, White House officials tried “privately” to convince Beijing that what their president said did not reflect official Washington policy.
Let us recall that not so long ago, after negotiations between the head of the US State Department and the Chinese Foreign Minister and then with Xi Jinping, Biden called the latter a “dictator.”
Taken by surprise
This is precisely what shocked US government officials, who were not prepared for such a development of events, reports NBC News, citing its own sources.
Senior US government officials said Wednesday they were taken by surprise when President Joe Biden described Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator” just 24 hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing, Rossiya Segodnya TV channel.
Please note: competent officials in Washington immediately tried in an informal dialogue to notify the Chinese side that what Biden said did not reflect “a new thesis or a change in the official policy of the administration.”
“Embarrassment of Dictators”
The day before, the American leader, commenting on the incident with a Chinese balloon shot down in US airspace, said that the head of the PRC did not have all the information about the emergency.
Because of this, he was very upset, because this is a big embarrassment for dictators,” Joe Biden said then.
Xi Jinping was very upset when I shot down this balloon with two cars of spy equipment, because he did not know that the balloon was there. It is a great embarrassment for dictators when they do not know what happened, said the US President.
China’s reaction
This statement was reacted to in China, in particular, by the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning.
She called Biden’s remarks “grossly irresponsible” and a violation of diplomatic etiquette.
She also said that these statements are inherently a “political provocation” and a “serious attack on the political dignity” of the PRC.
China expresses strong dissatisfaction and strong protest,” Ning said.
