Biden Calls Xi Jinping a Dictator: China-U.S. Relations and a Growing Multipolar World

here on Democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman with nurmishek China's blasted President Biden for calling Chinese president Xi Jinping a dictator just days after Secretary of State Anthony blinken met with Xi Jinping in Beijing in an attempt to stabilize relations amid soaring tension over Taiwan and other issues blinken was the first U.S Secretary of State to travel to China since 2018.

Biden made his comment on Monday during a private fundraiser he was talking about the U.S shooting down a Chinese surveillance balloon in February Biden said quote and the reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box Cars full of spy equipment in it is he didn't know it was there Biden said Biden went on to say

that's a quote great embarrassment for dictators when they didn't know what happened unquote China's foreign spokesperson Mao ning blasted Biden's comments the relevant remarks by the U.S side are extremely absurd irresponsible and seriously violate basic facts diplomatic protocol and China's political dignity they are an open political provocation China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this to talk more about U.S China relations we're joined

by a ho Fung Hong he's a professor of political economy and sociology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore his books include Clash of Empires from chamerica to the new Cold War and the China boom why China will not rule the world Professor welcome back to democracy now it's great to have you with us why don't you start off with this San Francisco fundraiser where Biden made

these comments about she being a dictator just after Anthony blinken the Secretary of State met with she in Beijing yes definitely that um what Biden said in fact is uh true in every word that Xi Jinping everybody know that he is a dictator it's the slow up even the presidential term limit of his road and he's not elected and he ruled China of a terranin in

a very often way and also Biden said which is true is that it would be an embarrassment if Xi Jinping didn't know what is going on about the balloon but uh the China's response is right in the sense that it is kind of a violation of a diplomatic protocol because um many times for the sake of maintaining good relation uh leaders uh don't talk about some

embarrassing or Inconvenient Truth to each other so the but Biden has its own reason uh to talk like that about Xi Jinping after Brink and visit to China because there is a voice that Lincoln is played and and it's not treated uh as uh as a kind of equal compared to his predecessors make compelled and John Kerry when they are meeting with C so the Ford

internal for the internal domestic audience and and Biden lead to shake the impression that he's weak on China so he leads to top tough one about China after the meeting well it's an extremely unfortunate irrespective of the veracity of the claim it's unfortunate timing because there were some advances in U.S China talks at least in resuming talks with Lincoln's visit to China if you could uh

elaborate on uh whose initiative it was that these talks took place in the first place that Lincoln went to China his initial visit was postponed because of the controversy around the Spy balloon and the fact that China initially wanted to see first the U.S treasury secretary and the Commerce Secretary but the U.S had said had insisted that that Lincoln would come first yeah definitely the right

now uh China's economy is in the bad shape uh even after the pandemic after opening that rebounds the why they talk about unexpected rebounds in China didn't happen and the Chinese local government and real estate developer and and and uh important Enterprise are still have it in depth so China really at this time lead the help from the U.S economically uh so it is why China

would uh want to see some officials from the U.S that is in charge of the economy but of course from the U.S side of the thing that the priority of the Biden Administration is to minimize the risks of the U.S China relations and prevent it from escalating into military conflict and while U.S is very occupied with Russian immigration in Ukraine on on that front that U.S

really want to put up some kind of guardrail to prevent the deterioration of U.S China evaluation so it is also the consideration behind Biden's sending the brain can to Midwest City to establish some discussion and Communication channel again diplomatically so it is a kind of a situation that the expectation about the talk between the banking and and see is a lot higher and after all it

is only it only lasted 35 minutes including translation it's very short but the fact that they start to talk again and then they also agreed to talk more it's already a kind of achievement and could you talk more about uh Professor Hong the economic Dimensions to this meeting uh the fact that we're speaking now as Prime Minister Modi is in the U.S the U.S is hoping

in part to shift part of its manufacturing the the companies U.S companies operating in China to shift manufacturing from China to India by way of example at the moment 95 percent of iPhones are made in China but apple is now considering is moving manufacturing to India which is projected to produce 25 of iPhones in just two years China has also hosted several CEOs of tech companies

in recent months including Elon Musk Jamie dimon of JP Morgan and Apple's Tim Cook so if you could talk about this the potential shift of a U.S economic interest from China to India definitely it is already happening that for one one thing that the China's demographic and economic structures have been shifting and we have been hearing a lot of report about the rising wage in China

also the demographic fall in China that China is running out of young people the Lord as much as like 20 30 years ago when there's a lot of young educated low-cost labor India is going to be the biggest relation demographically in the years to come and India economy has been growing as a pace now faster than China so the corporations from the U.S from Japan and

many other parts of the world is already diversifying the operation in China uh to India and other other states in southeast Asia but these Southeast Asian countries none of them are as big demographically and economically than India so really India is the place that many corporations trying to move two of course it's very difficult to to move all of the operation that is already existing in

China to India it will take time but the escalating U.S China competition and the risk of kind of uh sanctions which is like what U.S impose and and the world impose on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine increase the risk that anybody have investment in in China and also the Chinese policy itself that the Crackdown on big tag and it's cracked down on due diligence uh

consultancy firms in gathering economic data in China also the covet lockdown experience give many U.S corporations also a code fit and then they really worry that the Chinese economic environment and the government economic policy is no longer as predictable as as friendly to foreign Enterprises as before so it's all these factors add together we see that even apple as you mentioned uh is already diversifying the

operation uh to India and also to Vietnam as well uh to minimize the risks they are going to face in China so this trend is already happening so India is the go-to place and the U.S intention to show up its relation uh economic and strategic relation with India is probably going to accelerate this trend we just have 30 seconds ho Fung hung but I wanted to

ask you about the role of China when it comes to putting pressure on Russia around the Ukraine war or acting as a mediator you already have China earlier this year uh mediating an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran um can you talk about what you see China's role could be um this little China can do that the Chinese government would not uh I I won't thank

the I don't think Chinese government would explicitly help Russian on the military side of the thing but many companies and private companies or semi-party we can stay company in China can help Russia and then the Chinese government can disown them and saying that I don't know about it so on one thing China's interest is that the conflict in Ukraine will prolong so the Western Alliance will

be occupied with them but at the same time China really will be interested in participating in the post-war or kind of a reconstruction in Ukraine to get some of the Reconstruction contracts so China cannot present itself as too much uh totally on the side of Russia so China is caught in this kind of a dilemma right now and so far it is playing uh whether the

well well we want to thank you for being with us professor of political economy and sociology at Johns Hopkins universities his book Clash of Empires and new Cold War and the China boom