A day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left Beijing with a joint commitment to ease tensions with China, his own boss undercut him with an off-the-cuff remark likening Chinese President Xi Jinping to a "dictator.”
U.S. President Joe Biden made the comment during an extended riff at a fundraiser where he said Xi "got very upset” when the U.S. shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon in February because "he didn’t know it was there.”
"No, I’m serious,” he said. "That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened.”