Hours after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in the first face-to-face meeting in over a year, US President Joe Biden said he still considered him a 'dictator'. He made the remark when he was asked if he held the same view as before about Xi during a press conference, and Biden said, "Well look he is, I mean he's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who's running a country, a Communist country, that's based on a form of government totally different than ours."
This comes after Biden said the leaders made 'real progress' in the crucial meeting held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. Biden said the two leaders made agreements on key issues such as military communications, artificial intelligence and curbs on drugs.
“We’re back to direct, open clear direct communication on a direct basis,” Biden said, adding that Xi agreed to high-level communications, as reported by Reuters. He said, "He and I agreed that each one of us can pick up the phone call directly and we'll be heard immediately."
The leaders last met in 2022 on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.
This is not the first time Biden made such a remark on Xi. Earlier, Biden had compared Xi to dictators during a political fundraiser in California when he was discussing the reaction of his Chinese counter to the US fighter jets shooting down a Chinese spy balloon spotted over the American airspace in February.
The latest comments could trigger a backlash from Beijing as it did last time when similar remarks were met with criticism by Chinese officials who dubbed it provocative and absurd.
The timing was also questionable as it could derail the positive outcome of the meeting on which Biden said, “some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had.”