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MoFA-Biden's "Dictator" Comments "Violated China's Political Dignity"

US-CHINA

(MNI) London - Wires carrying comments from the Chinese foreign ministry regarding the comments made by US President Joe Biden at a campaign event in California, in which he labelled Chinese President Xi Jinping a "dictator"'. MoFA states China "Expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition", and that the comments "Seriously violated China's political dignity, and amounted to public political provocation."

  • While the comments were clearly directed at a domestic audience in the run up to a campaign that is likely to be rife with hawkish rhetoric on China, they will likely be viewed as a foreign policy blunder by Biden coming so shortly after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's meeting with Xi and other top minister in Beijing.
  • Speaking in Kentfield, CA, Biden said that, “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...That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,”
  • In the wake of Blinken's visit there had been murmurings that a Xi-Biden meeting could be on the cards, potentially at the G20 summit in India in September. However, this possibility could now be in jeopardy.

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