China blasts Joe Biden's 'totally irresponsible' remarks about Xi Jinping

UPDATE DAY

China on Thursday deplored the “totally irresponsible” comments of US President Joe Biden, who publicly stated in an interview that his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping was facing “huge problems”, including on the economic plan. 

“These remarks (…) are totally irresponsible and violate the basic rules of diplomatic etiquette,” said Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition,” she said at a regular press conference.

Joe Biden gave an interview to the American public channel PBS on Wednesday.

“Find me a single world leader ready to swap places with Xi Jinping… I can't find one”, had in particular assailed the American president.

“This man has enormous problems”, in particular “an economy which does not work very well”, he judged, noting however that the Chinese leader “had also a lot of potential”.

Noting that Chinese support for Russia had been relatively quiet, Joe Biden pointed out that, contrary to what “everyone assumed” at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Beijing was not “fully” committed behind Moscow. .

A reservation, according to him, linked to Xi Jinping's desire not to suffer the same fate as Russia, which has seen the imposition of harsh economic sanctions by the West.

“I called him this summer to say, 'That's not a threat, just an observation: look what happened to Russia,'” Joe Biden said on Wednesday.

< p>The White House tenant met Xi Jinping in person for the first time in his term as president in November, at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. They had then already spoken by telephone or videoconference five times.

The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, last week canceled a planned visit to Beijing, after entering the United States airspace from a Chinese balloon, since shot down by the United States military.