President Biden on Tuesday called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator” just one day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Chinese leader in Beijing.
Biden made the comments at a fundraiser event in California, saying Xi was “embarrassed” by the Chinese balloon that wound up over US territory in February.
“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. No, I’m serious. That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden said.
The president has repeatedly claimed that the balloon had “two boxcars full of spy equipment in it” but has never offered evidence that shows it was a surveillance device. For their part, Beijing maintains it was a civilian weather balloon.
Biden acknowledged that China did not intentionally fly the balloon over the US as it was blown off course due to unexpected weather. “That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States. And he didn’t know about it. When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed,” the president said.
Blinken canceled an earlier planned trip to China over the errant balloon, reversing progress on dialogue that the US and China had been making following the Biden-Xi meeting in Bali that took place in November 2022. Biden said Blinken did a “good job” on his recent trip to China, but the president’s comments appear to have set relations back again as they drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing.
“The relevant remarks by the US side are extremely ridiculous and irresponsible, they seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocol, and China’s political dignity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Relevant and ridiculous at the same time?
Everytime he does not speak from a script this happens.
It is sad when people get senile but dangerous when they are in positions of power.
What makes you think he wasn’t speaking from a script?
A lot of the US version of “diplomacy” is to make nice with one hand (Blinken’s visit to Beijing) and badmouth with the other (Biden rudely mentioning the nature of Xi’s position).
The easist way to know when Joe is off script is the immediate clarification that gets issued to clean up whatever he said (they still are trying to explain away the “God save the Queen” that Joe gave the other day)
I bet there’s a clarification that was issued almost before the word “dictator” had left Joe’s lips.
What, you think the “clarifications” aren’t scripted in advance as well?
The man is a blowhard and always has been. His understanding of foreign policy and diplomacy is grotesquely inadequate to the needs of the Post WWII world.
At this point the best that can happen is his loss in the next election based on a complete rejection of US post cold war foreign “policy”.
I used to respect this country for some of its efforts to promote freedom and advances related to the poorer and less fortunate on planet Earth, our home. But no more.
I’m not convinced that Blinken “made nice,” nor that the Chinese took his behavior that way.
What I see is a PR stunt, aimed at the American audience, seeking to pretend he can do diplomacy when he actually has no intention of doing so.
He seeks trouble, not peace. It is the neocon way, and they rule now, including Blinken and Nuland among their leading members.
He doesn’t intend anything. He just grunts and spews outdated shibboleths.
Senility. Simpler.
What a rude unprofessional self-destructive speech to give.
Biden has proven he’s a poor statesman possibly brinksmanship to sell diplomatic efforts that are quickly reversed with an intentional barb afterwards that leaves voters blaming senility over malice.
When he had a brain he was still an incompetent nasty S.O.B.
Another “gaffe’? Out of 300 million Americans, we can’t find anyone under the age of 70 for president? This is just poor statesmanship all around. No doubt the Chinese will take great offense and hinder diplomatic progress.
“”… when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it … “”
…. Biden
i think he has no idea what a real boxcar is.
nice shot man.
Aw, c’mon, you lying dog-faced pony soldier. Everyone knows what a real boxcar is.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b7b953a307da700edfefc7de497a0c7f2c2f09d10cbea8bf0145f722164a0bf5.jpg
damnit LOL
Only when It’s full of hundred dollar bills for him & Hunter to pay for their bad habits…
Has Joe been touching some of the stuff Hunter indulges in? C’mon man, that’s just Joe being Joe.
Biden might have said it, but it was Blinken that ordered him to say it. It appears Bliken did not get what he wanted from Xi.
Actually, the Chinese had so thoroughly whipped Blinken during those 11+ hours of meetings that an honest appraisal could not say relations had improved enough to be “set back again.”
He’d brought nothing, was unrepentant, and got treated accordingly. Then his boss only proved that was the US design.
Honestly, this sounds exactly like the ramblings of a senile old man who swears he fought in both world wars and can show you the battles scars on his left leg to prove it, if only he could find them.
“It was so long ago, the scars have all healed up, I tells ya …”
C’mon XI, expose just how corrupt the Biden Crime family is. We know you have the goods on him. Don’t let the great grifter wannabe dickator insult you like that.
Yeah…that will make the world safer.
What’s next Joe?
‘Xi is fat’?
Xi can call Biden a warmonger or the “Miscommander In Chief”. Joe’s Department of Disinformation or whatever it is called doesn’t mention the misinformation Joe spreads faster than the speed of light or sound.
Joe is a much bigger warmonger than George Warmonger Bush, George Herbert Warmonger Bush, Bill Clinton, Ehud Barack Obomber, Donald J Chump and Tony Blair Witch Project.
Regardless of anything else, I believe Russia is on a path to crushing Ukraine, even if the US refuses to accept it. At some point, it seems to me, the Ukrainians themselves (and the revenge fringe of NATO) will (reluctantly) wake up to the fact that they have been deceived by NATO and that the bloc is a bag of hot air with nukes. Incredibly the Victoria Nuland Brigade who passed out cookies at Maidan had not done its analysis properly and are only now becoming aware that decades of off-shoring have weakened the industrial base of the west. And furthermore the underlying problem in the US is a hard-core belief in a “global mission” to save the world for democracy. Well, we are one of the most corrupt countries on the planet based on the unaudited expenses of the Pentagon. Our liberal democracy is slowly running the country into the ground, as shown by many statistics on education, on homlessness and food precariousness.
Having Biden as President is proof that the office has little relvance and that someone behind the scenes is making the decisions. Time for Americans to wake up. It all started in Nov 1963. The country has never been the same since.
That reminds me of the fake wizard in The Wizard of Oz that said “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. Someone behind the scenes could be making the decisions for Joe since he is less alert than his teleprompter.
All Presidents have people around them pushing them in directions. Biden, I imagine at this point, is more pliable than most…except of course his habit of going off script, which they try to keep him from doing.
Nov 1963 was a coup de tete.
Exactly, the country wasn’t the same after that. Some call it the lost of innocence. I don’t know about the innocence part, but for many reasons, the 60’s was the beginning of the slide downhill for the U.S. One could look at several events; the Vietnam War, the assassinations of the Kennedy’s and MLK and the riots, the drug culture, the Great Society started by Johnson, and so forth.
The only thing was that at one time,the President called the shots-FDR and Truman were flawed,but we knew they were in charge.Now, the power elite pull the strings behind evil puppets.
Big mouth, mediocre brain, world-wide embarrassment.
“mediocre” would be an exaggeration.
To counter the balloon over the US we sent a buffoon over to China.
DIPLOMASSY?…
Biden can run his mouth, Blinken can pretend to be diplomatic, none of that matters as much as people might think. What does matter is the amount of weapons we send to Taiwan, that matters a lot, a game of good cop bad cop, not so much.
And yes some actual diplomacy would be nice, but as long as we continue to send arms at the rate we have been recently, all the talking in the world won’t convince China of our “good will”. The same thing goes for our trade agreements and cracking down on their tech industry.
Actions speak much louder than words, especially when you are dealing with Well Known Liars, especially one who change their position towards China based more upon political considerations and behind the scenes money, than geopolitical ones.
This of course is the problem with corruption, you can’t deal with corrupt people as if they will behave in the best interest of their own people or the world in general. In fact you must assume they are willing to do the opposite of what’s good for their people or the world, that’s if their true masters demand it.
China showed the middle finger to Blinken and Biden retaliates with this nonsense…!
If and when we reach the ripe old age of eighty years or beyond and pretend that time has not taken its tole, we are totally full of it. Our vision, our energy, our reaction time, our very thought processes, our sense of speed and noise levels get distorted etc etc etc. Now Joe Biden is aware of these realities and knows he is no longer fit to do the job as leader of the free world. He knows there are many younger and better equipped individuals that can see far more clearly then he, and yet he would gamble the future of the nation and all of humanity to remain in office. That’s a crime in itself.
Bliken got nothing, so now Biden resurects balion issue.
US has no diplimats any more. Megaphone diolomacy is for the dunces.
Blinken is not Stillwell. And Biden is not FDR.
After Hillary’s appointment at Columbia university, Biden is opening his own “Biden school for international diplomacy.” The Chinese announced they’re funding it by selling us more floating “spy” balloons. (Sarcasm alert)
The irony is that he was actually trying to downplay the “China threat” to his donors, who, thanks to our media, are convinced that Xi personally piloted the “spy balloon” from Beijing to Montana using a remote control. Not only was Biden saying that the balloon was not a big deal (he called the incident “silly” at another talk), that China didn’t fly it to Montana on purpose (in which case it couldn’t have been on a spying mission, could it? Unless there are military sites inside the polar ice cap that only balloons can monitor?), but that Xi knew nothing about it and was not responsible for it, that it was just an unfortunate accident, exactly as China had been asserting before he decided to turn it into a shoot-first-ask-questions-later incident.
However, he just couldn’t help himself tossing in some colorful words in an otherwise conciliatory statement to impress his audience with his world-renowned wit, as usual.
It reminds me of a scene in “The Mule”, where Clint Eastwood’s character stopped on the side of a deserted road to assist a couple of stranded motorists having difficulty replacing a flat tire. Just as they were about to shower him with praise and gratitude, he casually referred to them as “negro folks”, instantly ruining the mood.
“two boxcars full of spy equipment in it”
Sure dotard, now go ask your dad where the stuff is then…Oops, dont trip.
Saying that XI is a dictator is a show of respect and admiration from Dementia Joe.
Best take on this was over at Consortium News: https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/20/patrick-lawrence-us-still-nowhere-with-the-chinese/