China hits out at US after Joe Biden calls Xi Jinping a ‘dictator’

China has responded with outrage after US President Joe Biden called his counterpart Xi Jinping a “dictator”, threatening to derail nascent efforts at their deteriorating ties.

China’s foreign ministry slammed Biden’s remarks as “extremely absurd and irresponsible” – which came just a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the Chinese leader in Beijing to resume talks.

China’s foreign ministry said “the comments seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocol and China’s political dignity”.

The US President said at a fundraising campaign in California on Tuesday evening that Xi was not aware of an alleged spy balloon that flew over the US earlier this year. The incident gave rise to bitterness and brought bilateral relations to an all-time low.

“It’s a great embarrassment for dictators when they don’t know what’s happened,” Biden told a gathering of 130 guests at a private home.

The timing of the comments is expected to anger Xi, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, who in March secured an unprecedented third five-year term in office.

The Chinese president had said on Monday that he had seen “progress” in bilateral ties after meeting Blinken at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State said at the end of his visit that the two countries have taken a “positive step” towards building “better lines of communication” to ensure that “competition does not turn into conflict”.

The trip followed months of falling relations after Blinken postponed travel plans following the spy balloon incident.

During the interval, warships and aircraft from both countries narrowly escaped each other during maneuvers near Taiwan and in the South China Sea, raising the possibility that their differences could escalate into a military incident.

China’s foreign ministry said Wednesday that Biden’s remarks at the fundraiser amounted to an “open political provocation.”

The ministry said, ‘China is completely dissatisfied with this and strongly opposes it.’

Chinese officials often complain that the US wants talks, but then engages in provocative actions, such as new technology export controls or inflammatory rhetoric.

On the other hand, Washington has stressed the importance of maintaining open channels of discussion, regardless of their differences.

Xi came to power in 2012 and immediately launched an anti-corruption campaign that dusted off many of his rivals. During a Communist Party congress last year, he secured his third term as general secretary and filled the organization’s ruling body with party loyalists.

In March, the approximately 3,000 members of China’s rubber stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, unanimously elected him as president. He was the only candidate.

In another threat to the fragile truce with Beijing, Blinken said this week he had also raised concerns with China about alleged electronic espionage facilities in Cuba.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Beijing and Havana had reached a tentative deal for a new electronic eavesdropping facility in Cuba, about 350 km from Florida.

The Biden administration initially disputed the report but later disclosed that China had been conducting electronic espionage from Cuba since at least 2019.

With additional reporting by Nian Liu in Beijing and Thomas Hale in Shanghai