WorthyNews: US President Calls China’s Counterpart Dictator

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By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – U.S. President Joe Biden still believes Chinese President Xi Jinping is “a dictator,” prompting a rebuke from Beijing after the two leaders initially reported progress during their meeting in the United States.

“Well, look, he is,” Biden told reporters when asked whether he stands by remarks he made at a campaign fundraiser in June when he referred to Xi as a “dictator.”

“I mean, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that is based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said. “Anyway, we made progress.”

Yet Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, said China “strongly opposes” the dictator description, without mentioning Biden by name. “This statement is extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation,” she stressed.

Biden made the remarks after both leaders agreed to open a presidential hotline, resume military-to-military communications, and work to curb fentanyl production, showing tangible progress in their first face-to-face talks in a year.

Biden and Xi met for more than four hours during a carefully choreographed summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation on the outskirts of San Fransisco.

However, it should be pointed out that there will always be some people with ulterior motives who attempt to incite and damage U.S.-China relations; they are doomed to fail,” Mao said.

Mao would not specify the identity of “some people.”

EARLIER CRITICISM

China had already condemned Biden’s earlier assessment in June that Xi is a dictator. The disagreement underscores the deep tensions in U.S.-China relations despite any headway made at the meeting.

Biden and Xi have known each other for more than a decade. They spent time together in China in 2011, when they were vice presidents of their respective nations, and in Washington the following year.

“I value our conversation because I think it’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader to leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication,” Biden said Wednesday, sitting across from Xi as they kicked off their meeting. Biden added the U.S. does not want the economic competition between the nations to “veer into conflict.”

The controversy slightly overshadowed a summit where U.S. President Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi made rival bids to win over Asia-Pacific allies at a summit in San Francisco

“We’re not going anywhere,” Biden told business leaders attending the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in San Francisco as he tried to reassure the 21 member economies of U.S. commitment to the region.

“A stable relationship between the world’s two largest economies is not merely good for those two economies but for the world,” Biden said.

But despite the easing of tensions, Biden tried to make his case that Washington was a better ally for many of the bloc’s 21 member economies than an increasingly assertive Beijing.

ENGAGED IN PACIFIC

He said Xi had asked him on Wednesday “why we are so engaged in the Pacific.”

“I said it’s because we’re a Pacific nation. Because of us, there’s been peace and security in the region, allowing you to grow. He didn’t disagree,” Biden recalled.

Biden also met three-way with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, whom he hosted for a historic summit at Camp David in August.

Kishida and Xi had their first meeting in a year on the sidelines, with the Japanese leader voicing “serious concerns” over Chinese military activity in waters near Japan and Beijing’s “collaboration with Russia.”

He also demanded China lift its ban on Japanese seafood, imposed after Tokyo began releasing treated wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in August.

China and the United States are competing for influence across the hugely dynamic area stretching from the coasts of Canada to Chile and across to Australia, Malaysia, and Russia, observers noted.

While China has been offering infrastructure and loans with its “Belt and Road” program, the United States is busily trying to strengthen alliances with trade and other agreements.

CHARM OFFENSIVE

Xi embarked on his charm offensive at the APEC summit as he sought to win foreign investment in China’s sputtering economy and call for an end to tensions with the United States.

“The region cannot and should not be an arena for geopolitical rivalry, still less should it be plunged into a new cold war or camp-based confrontation,” he said in a written speech to CEOs.

Xi met Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who frequently shuns international meetings, and Peru’s interim President Dina Boluarte.

Obrador was to meet Biden on Friday when the two men are expected to address fentanyl, some of which comes through Mexico on its way into the United States.

Xi also received a warm reception at a dinner in San Francisco on Wednesday with hundreds of U.S. business leaders — reportedly including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook — who gave him several rounds of applause.

The Chinese leader then hinted at the dinner that he may deploy soft power to improve ties — pandas. Three famous big bears were sent back from Washington this month, but Xi said China was considering a new batch as “envoys of friendship.”

But critics would suggest it takes more than fury friends to improve relations. They cite Western concerns over a reported crackdown on China’s devoted Christians and other minorities, as well as those opposing the communist system.

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