During a fundraising event in California, US President Joe Biden made comments referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping as an authoritarian leader. T
hese remarks followed a meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Xi in Beijing, which aimed to alleviate tensions between the United States and China.
Additionally, President Biden mentioned that President Xi appeared to be embarrassed following an incident where an alleged Chinese spy balloon was reportedly shot down by the US.
China said it “firmly opposes” Mr Biden’s comments.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it, was he didn’t know it was there,” Mr Biden said at the event on Tuesday.
“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened,” he added.
The balloon, which China says was monitoring weather, drifted across the continental US before being destroyed by American military aircraft in February.
Washington later said it was part of a sprawling Chinese intelligence collection programme. Mr Blinken, who was meant to visit Beijing at the time, postponed the trip in the wake of the incident.
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called Mr Biden’s remarks “extremely absurd and irresponsible”. Speaking at a regularly scheduled press conference on Wednesday, she said that the comments were “an open political provocation” that violated diplomatic etiquette.
Mr Blinken’s visit over the weekend, the first by a US secretary of state in almost five years, restarted high-level communications between the two countries.
Mr Xi said some progress had been made in Beijing, while Mr Blinken indicated both sides were open to more talks. Major differences, however, remain between the two countries.
Relations have plummeted in the wake of a Trump-era trade war, Beijing’s assertive claims over Taiwan and the shooting down of the alleged spy balloon.