(TibetanReview.net, Sep19’23) – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has on Sep 15 become the second Western leader to call Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator, a sobriquet strongly criticised by China when US president Joe Biden labelled him similarly in Jun 2023.
“We will support Ukraine as long as it takes,” Baerbock told Fox News, when asked how the government in Berlin saw the end of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
“If Putin were to win this war, what sign would that be for other dictators in the world, like Xi, like the Chinese president? Therefore, Ukraine has to win this war,” Baerbock said in the interview during her trip to the US.
While Germany has an ambivalent approach toward China, Baerbock’s own Green Party tends to lean toward a more assertive approach to Beijing, noted politico.eu Sep 16.
Earlier, speaking at a political fundraiser in California on Jun 20, Biden compared the Chinese leader to a dictator, and claimed Xi was “embarrassed” because he was unaware of the spy balloon that transited the US earlier this year.
“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. No, I’m serious. That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden said.
Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng reacted angrily to Biden’s remarks.
He spoke of having “made serious representations and strong protests to senior officials of the White House and the US Department of State on Jun 21” about Biden’s comments, which the Chinese Embassy called a “smear” that “seriously contradicts basic facts, breaches diplomatic etiquette, infringes on China’s political dignity, runs counter to the commitments made by the US side, and undermines mutual trust,” reported edition.cnn.com Jun 22
Biden downplayed the impact of his comments, saying, “I don’t think it’s had any real consequence.”
He said that he expected to meet Xi in the near future while suggesting he would not tone down his rhetoric in the future.
“The idea of me choosing and avoiding saying what I think is facts with regard to the relationship with China is just not something I’m going to change very much,” the report quoted Biden as saying.