China responds to Biden's "dictator Xi" statement
China has claimed that Joe Biden, the President of the US, "publicly provoked" China, calling his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a "dictator".
Source: Mao Ning, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, cited by the Bloomberg agency, as reported by European Pravda
At a briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, 21 June, Ning called Biden’s commentaries "irresponsible".
"It contradicts main facts and diplomatic protocols, seriously violates China’s political dignity and is a public political provocation," she stated.
On Tuesday, 20 June, Biden stated at a charity event in California that Xi was astonished by a spy balloon, which flew over the US earlier this year, and claimed that he "did not even know it was there".
"This is the biggest embarrassment for dictators – when they don’t know what happened," – Biden stated.
Comments by the US President and the response of China show how frail the connections between the biggest economies of the world are, provided that these economies have fundamental disagreements about the issues that concern human rights and technologies, as well as trade and selling weapons to Taiwan.
Background: On 18-19 June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting China. He held talks with Foreign Minister Qin Gang, which the State Department called "meaningful and constructive."
On 19 June, Blinken met with Xi Jinping. These talks were the first meeting of such level between the United States and China since 2018.
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