Skip to main content

US Still Hopes For Improved China Ties Despite Biden's "Dictator" Jab

The White House said Wednesday it had "every expectation" that the top US diplomat's recent trip to Beijing will lead to better relations, even after Joe Biden compared China's leader to embarrassed "dictators."

US State Secretary Antony Blinken "made some progress" during a long-awaited trip to China, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

"We have every expectation of building on that progress," the official said.

Blinken's visit, which concluded Monday, was meant to re-establish lines of communication as tensions simmer between the two global powers over Taiwan and an incident involving a Chinese balloon in February, which Washington believes was spying on the United States.

But China on Wednesday slammed Biden's remarks equating Chinese leader Xi Jinping with "dictators."

Beijing called that statement, made by Biden on Tuesday at a fundraiser in California, "an open political provocation."

The White House afterward sought to smooth tensions.

"It should come as no surprise that the President speaks candidly about China and the differences that we have -- we are certainly not alone in that," the official said later Wednesday.

"The President believes that diplomacy, including that undertaken by Secretary Blinken, is the responsible way to manage tensions," the official added.

Tuesday was not the first time Biden has made significant, even provocative, statements at fund-raising receptions -- usually small-scale events at which cameras and recordings are forbidden but where journalists may listen to and transcribe the president's opening remarks.

At one such event last October Biden spoke of the threat of nuclear "Armageddon" from Russia.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/cCNtGDL

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sri Lanka Must Achieve Debt Restructuring By September: IMF

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday reaffirmed that Sri Lanka must achieve its debt restructuring process by September, which is also the time for the global lender's formal review of the bailout facility it extended to the cash-strapped nation. On March 20, IMF extended a nearly $3 billion bailout facility to debt-ridden Sri Lanka that would help stabilise the country's economy after it was jolted by a devastating economic crisis last year. In a statement issued on Tuesday at the end of a nearly two weeks staff visit to Colombo to assess the progress made by Sri Lanka since the agreement was reached, the IMF said the two sides had discussed the developments on debt restructuring. "Sri Lanka must achieve debt restructuring by its first review due in September. We also discussed progress on debt restructuring, noting the ongoing discussions with both foreign and domestic creditors," the statement read. Sri Lanka is still struggling to normalise its crisis-hi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Amazon Rainforest Tribe's Secret To Healthy Life And Slow Ageing Revealed

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, a semi-nomadic indigenous community is thriving. This community defies conventional norms on ageing and health. The Tsimanes, consisting of 16,000 people, live a fully subsistence lifestyle, relying on hunting, foraging and farming to survive. Scientists have been studying this unique group for two decades, and have uncovered remarkable findings till now. Martina Canchi Nate, an 84-year-old Tsimanes woman, digs up yucca trees, cuts down plantain trees and carries heavy loads with ease, faster than her younger companions, as per a BBC report. This level of physical activity is not unusual among Tsimanes of her age. Researchers have discovered that this group has the healthiest arteries ever studied and brains that age more slowly than those in North America, Europe and elsewhere. The Tsimanes' secret lies in their active lifestyle, with an average of 16,000 to 17,000 steps per day. They spend less than 10 percent of daylight hours in sedentary activ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Egypt Unveils First Ancient Royal Tomb Since Tutankhamun In 1922

Egypt's antiquities authority says it has found the ancient tomb of King Thutmose II, the first royal burial to be located since the famed discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. The tomb, discovered near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in southern Egypt, belonged to King Thutmose II of the 18th dynasty, who lived nearly 3,500 years ago. Thutmose II was an ancestor to Tutankhamun himself, and his half-sister and queen consort was Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Her giant mortuary temple stands on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor a few kilometres (miles) from where the tomb of Thutmose II was found. Although preliminary studies suggest its contents were moved in ancient times -- leaving the tomb without the iconic mummy or gilded splendour of the Tutankhamun find -- the antiquities ministry on Tuesday called the discovery "one of the most significant archaeological breakthroughs in recent years". It has been excavated by a joint Egyptian-British mission, led by the Suprem...
Post a Comment
Read more