 "A day after Blinken's China visit, Joe Biden calls Xi Jinping a 'dictator'")
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Chinese President Xi Jinping a "dictator" during a campaign fundraiser in California.
Biden further stated that Xi was embarrassed by the spy balloon incident, which caused intense diplomatic tension between Beijing and Washington.
The remarks came a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in an effort to ease tensions between the world's two largest economies. Blinken told NBC after his visit that the spy balloon "chapter should be closed."
Biden, on the other hand, revisited the subject in front of a crowd of more than 125 people, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, who also spoke at the fundraiser.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment is he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said.
“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators,” he added, “when they didn’t know what happened.”
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Biden further stated that the Chinese balloon was blown off course without Xi's knowledge, adding that "when it got shot down, he (Xi) was very embarrassed and denied it was even there."
The curious case of the Chinese spy balloon
Biden was referring to an alleged Chinese spy balloon that floated across the United States in February.
The balloon, which China claims was an unmanned civilian airship conducting meteorological research, was shot down by the Air Force off the coast of South Carolina after it hovered above sensitive US military installations. The incident became a flashpoint for diplomatic tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Though Blinken's visit was deemed a success — Biden said at the fundraiser that his secretary of state did "a good job".
China and the US have yet to re-establish several military communication channels that were cut after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, a self-governing island off China's coast that Beijing claims as its own territory.
The meeting produced no breakthroughs other than an agreement between the two parties to stabilise the relationship.
Tense military standoff between US, China
In recent weeks, the two countries have had tense military encounters in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, which some have found particularly concerning.
In both cases, China stated that it was defending its national sovereignty. The US condemned Beijing's actions, emphasising that American service members were operating in international airspace and waters.