Biden rants against Chinese President Xi, calls him a ‘dictator’

US President Joe Biden has called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator,” a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Xi on a trip to the country that was aimed at easing tensions between the two powers.

Speaking at an event in California on Tuesday, Biden also claimed Xi was very embarrassed when a Chinese balloon was blown off course over the United States earlier this year, according to Reuters.

"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 in it was he didn't know it was there," Biden said.

"That's a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn't know what happened. That wasn't supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course," Biden added.

China said the United States had violated international norms by shooting down a balloon in February. The incident has increased US-China tensions.

China's foreign affairs director, Wang Yi, said the US shooting down of the Chinese weather balloon “does not show the US is strong; on the contrary, it shows it is weak.”

He added that the shooting down was part of an attempt to divert attention from the domestic problems of the Biden administration.

The US alleged the unmanned balloon was designed to detect and collect intelligence signals, but China insisted that it was used for meteorological and other scientific purposes and had strayed into US airspace accidentally.

While Chinese officials say the United States is facing entomic problems, Biden on Tuesday said that China "has real economic difficulties."

The US president also claimed that Xi had been concerned by the so-called Quad strategic security group, which includes Japan, Australia, India and the United States.   

Biden said he previously told Xi the US was not trying to encircle China with the Quad.

"He called me and told me not to do that because it was putting him in a bind," Biden said.

MG