President Biden calls China's Xi a dictator, drawing a backlash from Beijing

WASHINGTON − President Joe Biden referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a "dictator" Tuesday night, drawing a sharp rebuke from China and threatening to undermine his administration's efforts to "thaw" intensifying relations.

Biden made the remark during a Democratic fundraiser in Kentfield, California as he discussed his decision in February to order the military to shoot down a Chinese balloon suspected to be conducting surveillance of U.S military sites.

Biden said Xi was embarrassed that he was not informed beforehand by his own government about the spy balloon, which was shot down above the Atlantic Ocean after it traversed over the continental U.S.

"The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it, is he didn't know it was there," Biden said. "No, I'm serious. That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn't know what happened."

A U.S. warplane took down the spy balloon off the South Carolina coastline after Biden refrained, for multiple days, from having it shot down because of safety concerns about the falling debris.

"It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States. And he didn't know about it," Biden said Tuesday of Xi. "When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed. He denied it was even there."

Biden's comments came a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded a visit with Beijing in a long-shot bid to reset the great power rivalry between the U.S. and China that has deepened as a result of the spy-balloon incident.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, asked about Biden's comments, said they “go totally against facts and seriously violate diplomatic protocol, and severely infringe on China’s political dignity.”

“It is a blatant political provocation. China expresses strong dissatisfaction and opposition,” Mao said at a daily briefing, calling the remarks "extremely absurd and irresponsible."

Mao reiterated China’s contention that the balloon was for meteorological purposes and was blown off course.

Blinken's trip to China, a major economic and military rival of the U.S., had been in the works since November 2022, when Biden and Xi held a three-hour meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.

Blinken originally planned to travel to Beijing in February, but the White House canceled his visit after it discovered the spy balloon. In the months since, U.S. officials repeatedly stated that Blinken hoped to reschedule his trip to China.

Biden, speaking in Hiroshima, Japan, in May during the conclusion of the G-7 Summit, predicted a coming "thaw" in relations with China.

While the meeting renewed talks between high-level U.S. and Chinese officials, China is still refusing talks between the two militaries.

"It’s a work in progress," Blinken said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. "This is something that we need to do in the interests of both of our countries."

Asked about military-to-military communication with China, Blinken said, "We don’t have an agreement on that yet. It’s something we’re going to keep working."

Contributing: Associated Press, Kim Hjelmgaard and Miles J. Hershenhorn.

More: Diplomatic tango: Blinken heads to China. But thawing relations will take more than a meeting

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden calls Xi a dictator, drawing a sharp rebuke from China