China on Thursday criticized the “completely irresponsible” comments of US President Joe Biden, who said in an interview that his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, is facing “huge trouble” economically.
“These comments (…) are totally irresponsible and against basic rules of diplomatic etiquette”said Mao Ning, spokesman for China’s foreign ministry.
“China expresses great dissatisfaction and fierce opposition”said the spokeswoman at a press conference.
In an interview with US public broadcaster PBS, Biden said: “Find a single world leader willing to trade places with Xi Jinping. I can’t find one”.
‘This man has huge problems’in particular, “an economy that isn’t working very well,” Joe Biden pointed out, recalling that the Chinese leader “has a lot of potential, too.”
Joe Biden noted that Chinese support for Russia was relatively weak and pointed out that, contrary to what “everyone assumed” at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China is not “completely” committed to Moscow.
China’s reservations stem from a desire not to suffer the same fate as Russia, which was subject to harsh economic sanctions imposed by the West, the US leader said.
“I called [a Xi] in the summer to tell him: ‘This is not a threat, just an observation, but look what happened to Russia’revealed Joe Biden.
Last November, the White House tenant met face-to-face with Xi Jinping, for the first time since he began his term as president, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
The two leaders had previously spoken five times by phone or video conference.
US diplomatic chief Antony Blinken canceled a planned visit to Beijing last week after a Chinese balloon, meanwhile shot down by the US military, entered US airspace.
Source: DN
