SAN FRANCISCO – Beijing did not take kindly to President Biden calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator” at a press conference following their hours-long summit Wednesday – but you wouldn’t know it from Chinese media.
Biden’s off-script characterization of Xi – which made Secretary of State Antony Blinken visibly wince – did not appear in China’s main state-run online media outlets, China Daily and Global Times, and experts tell The Post the move was likely strategic to project a rosy impression of US-China relations.
At a regular briefing with international reporters Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Beijing “strongly opposes” the characterization, calling it “extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation.”
“It should be pointed out that there will always be some people with ulterior motives who attempt to incite and damage US-China relations,” Mao said, without mentioning Biden by name. “They are doomed to fail.”
The statement is noticeably absent from the briefing’s transcript, which the ministry posted shortly after the press conference ended.
What remains is Mao’s glowing review of the Biden-Xi summit, which she called “positive, comprehensive and constructive” — comments that were dutifully repeated by official sources.
“It was an important opportunity for the two sides to build trust, clear up misgivings, manage differences and expand cooperation and an important meeting that adds certainty and stability for a world going through turmoil and changes,” Mao said. “San Francisco can be a new starting point for stabilizing China-US relations.”
Rosy reviews
The sudden positivity – and apparent cover-up – comes after a year marked by disturbing incidents that further soured the US-China relationship. In February, American jets shot down a Chinese spy balloon that Beijing sent through American airspace. Later, it was revealed that China has been operating a surveillance base in Cuba, just 90 miles south of Florida, since 2019.
Eric Gomez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told The Post Beijing likely gave Biden “a pass on this one” to project an idea of a blooming future for the US-China relationship – which is especially key as China’s economy falters due to US sanctions and worsening trade relations with its fellow economic powerhouse nation.
“I’m sure they don’t like it … but I think the fact that they didn’t highlight it is a bit of a olive branch or a gesture of saying, ‘We’re not gonna make a big deal out of this because that’s not where we want the focus to be.'”
The messaging came as a stark contrast to the last time Biden called Xi a “dictator”, at a fundraiser in June. After that incident, Mao blasted the president, saying his comments “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 her daily briefing on June 21. (The Post was unable Thursday to find that day’s transcript archived on the ministry’s website.)
That abrupt shift to a positive spin on US-China relations was also seen in Chinese media outlets, which for years have been overwhelmingly critical of the US and Biden, but Wednesday and Thursday’s reports gave sensational accounts of the summit and the future of Sino-American relations.
“All in all, the summit as [Chinese Foreign Minister] Wang Yi said, can have far-reaching influence as the two leaders put forward guiding opinions on the most prominent issues in bilateral relations and set out the future-oriented direction for the two countries to get along,” China Daily’s Thursday editorial gushed.
CGTN News – which also owned by the Chinese government – went so far as to title an opinion piece reviewing the summit: “Resumption of positivity in Sino-US ties.”
“The meeting not only met expectations but set in motion a trajectory indicative of a newfound era of cooperation between the two global powerhouses,” a CGNT columnist wrote. “The Xi-Biden summit marks a crucial step in halting the ongoing deterioration of the bilateral relationship.”
Strategic messaging
The raving reviews were likely both authentic and strategic, RAND Corp’s Taiwan Policy Institute director Ramond Kuo told The Post.
“The Chinese government has strategic incentives to view the summit as authentically positive, and so they’re also going to downplay Biden’s ‘dictator’ comment,” he said. “It’s standard spin doctoring, although in China, that can encompass an entire blackout of the incident.”
Due to China’s lack of a free press, Gomez told The Post that it’s not uncommon for Beijing to “downplay certain things to tamp down certain nationalist sentiments.”
“I think focusing on the more substantial outcomes of the meeting and messages of, ‘Yeah, we’re competing, but we can find a way to navigate this without conflict,’ will let Xi Jinping take home a message that’s he’s being a responsible party by not letting something get blown out of proportion.”
But Kuo said the shifted messaging was necessary to explain why Xi went to the summit despite a year of China’s repeated public bashing of the US and Biden.
“The CCP has been demonizing the US over the past year. Their propaganda arm therefore needs to justify Xi’s appearance,” Kuo said. “And so they’ve been emphasizing positive aspects of future US-China cooperation, as well as historical incidents highlighting formerly good relations.”
The hushed reaction may also have been influenced by the “less aggressive” way that Biden called Xi a dictator on Wednesday as opposed to his earlier statement, Gomez said.
In June, Biden’s characterization came as a jab at Xi, while the Wednesday statement came across as more of a description of China’s political system.
On Wednesday, Biden told reporters that Xi “is a dictator in the sense that he is the guy who runs the country, that is a Communist country, that is based on a form of government different than ours.”
In June, he mocked Xi for reportedly not knowing the Chinese spy balloon had entered US airspace, calling it “a great embarrassment for dictators when they didn’t know what happened.”
“It felt like [Wednesday] was very much more of a matter of fact-type statement,” Gomez said, “rather than like a ‘f— you’ type statement.”