Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to wince and shake his head when President Biden referred to China’s President Xi Jinping as a “dictator” Wednesday – potentially upending months of tireless diplomacy to rebuild relations between the two countries.
Blinken, 61, physically recoiled and appeared to shake his head and fidget with his hands when Biden said Xi “is a dictator in the sense that he is the guy who runs the country that is a community country…based on a form of government different than ours” at a solo press conference.
The indelicate remark came shortly after Biden, 80, met with Xi for four hours in San Francisco ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference – marking the two leaders’ first in-person sit-down in a year.
Former Italian diplomat Marco Carnelos took to X to call out Blinken’s “desperate body language” in response to Biden’s statement.
Biden