China considers Joe Biden’s statement about Xi Jinping a “provocation”

China has harshly criticized US President Joe Biden for calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator, Reuters reports. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning protested to Washington. “The statements by the American side are extremely absurd, extremely irresponsible, contrary to facts, seriously violating diplomatic etiquette, are a serious attack on China’s political dignity and an open political provocation,” she said at a briefing.

Earlier on June 20, Reuters wrote that Biden called Xi a dictator, discussing the February incident with a Chinese balloon shot down by the US military. These words were spoken in California at a meeting that Biden organized to raise funds for his presidential campaign. In his opinion, Xi’s negative reaction to what happened with the balloon is due to the fact that the Chinese leader did not know about the real location of the balloon. “Dictators experience great confusion when they are not aware of what happened,” the American leader said.

It is noteworthy that Biden on June 17 already expressed the version that Beijing allegedly did not have information about what was happening with their aircraft. At the same time, the owner of the White House expressed hope for a meeting with Xi in the coming months.

Biden’s statement shows that in addition to economic, military-political and technological factors, the ideology factor plays an important role in bilateral relations, explains Alexander Lomanov, head of the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at IMEMO RAS. “For Washington, the projection of the ideological scheme on Beijing is the traditional line of American politics. The ideological factor in bilateral relations has penetrated the consciousness of the American political elite so much that sometimes it is not even possible to select neutral expressions to characterize relations with Beijing,” the expert noted.

The United States has repeatedly allowed itself to attack China, continues Alexei Davydov, senior researcher at the US Department of Foreign and Domestic Policy at IMEMO RAS. “Recall last August’s visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, which caused a serious aggravation of bilateral relations. For the Americans, this trip had a purely symbolic meaning, but not a practical one, ”the expert recalled. The disrespectful statement of the American president, Davydov believes, has three interpretations: “On the one hand, this is a random factor. Biden is often, due to his age, specified or not taken into account the context. On the other hand, he could deliberately express disrespect to his Chinese colleague, demonstrating dissatisfaction with the current level of relations, the expert noted. “Finally, there may be forces in the American establishment that are not interested in normalizing relations with China.”

However, there is a bipartisan consensus in American foreign policy strategy to continue containing China in world politics, Davydov said: “This strategic line is visible at the level of party platforms, national security strategy and the State Department. Differences can only be at the level of tactics on certain issues of economic and political interaction between the US and China.”

At the same time, for Beijing, Biden’s attack against the backdrop of Secretary Blinken’s recent talks with Chinese leaders was a sobering reminder that the Americans are not ready for constructive dialogue, which could put the negotiation process on pause, Lomanov continues. “Beijing is not interested in wasting time sorting things out and presenting lists of mutual claims. He needs a compromise and mutual concessions. At the very least, this requires recognition by Washington of Beijing as an equal partner, which the Americans are not ready to do at this stage,” the expert said.

According to Lomanov, the US political line to contain China in the future may provoke an international crisis: “I do not exclude such a scenario if the policy of containment of Beijing in the Far East goes too far. Much depends on the prudence and skill of American diplomacy.”