US President Joe Biden voiced confidence on Thursday that he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping soon, and refused to back down after angering Beijing by likening the Chinese leader to “dictators” earlier this week, AFP reports.
Biden rejected “this theory that the relationship with China is collapsing” and praised talks that were held in Beijing earlier this week between Xi and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who sought to keep tensions between the two powers in check.
“Secretary Blinken had a great trip to China. I expect to be meeting with President Xi sometime in the future — in the near term,” Biden was quoted as having told a news conference alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Implicitly doubling down on his earlier comments on Xi, Biden said he would not be “avoiding saying what I think (are) the facts” on China.
“It’s just not something I’m going to change very much,” he said.
On Tuesday, Biden called Xi a “dictator”, telling a fundraiser in California, “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.”
“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course,” Biden added.
The comments are a reference to the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean in February and which magnified US-China tensions.
China criticized the US for downing its surveillance balloon, saying it reserves the right for any necessary reaction to the incident.

Blinken had been scheduled to visit China soon after the incident, but postponed the visit in the wake of the discovery of the surveillance balloon.
When he was asked, shortly after the balloon incident, if it weakens US-China relations, Biden replied, “No. We made it clear to China what we’re going to do. They understand our position. We’re not going to back off.”