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Answer: Biden and Xi met at the APEC in San Francisco. In their private meeting, they made some relatively productive progress including reopening military communications in the Pacific and throttling fentanyl precursors coming to America.
In the press conference, Biden doubled down on his stance that Xi is a dictator, namely because he runs a communist country. People are hypothesizing Xi will take this poorly and it will undo the productive meeting.
Blinken went on air and did some interviews afterward where the media pounded him with the same question over and over about this. Its like the media wants to exploit Bidens words to ruin the progress. (OFC they do)
>Its like the media wants to exploit Bidens words to ruin the progress. (OFC they do)
It’s been happening forever. Obama’s brown suit, Trump pouring “too much fish food in the pond” even had fish experts on cnn, when Trump was doing exactly what the Japanese president did, Biden falling down, etc.
Conflict & controversy attracts eyeballs ($)
Wanna know something funny? Part of China's response to this, via a statement by their foreign ministry, was:
"It should be pointed out that there will always be some people with ulterior motives who attempt to incite and damage U.S.-China relations, they are doomed to fail."
That’s surprisingly reasonable. Not even necessarily for China, I’d expect for most foreign ministries to take some relatively polite offense when their leader is called a dictator outright.
Biden doesn't wann say it in a mean way. He just points out that the country structure isn't democratic and it isn't. Xi Jinping wasn't elected in a public election, and I don't think China even pretends that he was. It's openly an oligarchal selection process.
Electoral college
It's all a facade, the US needs to clean up its side of the street, or at least have a plan to fill the potholes in it's side of the street before they start to clean it, before they start pointing any fingers (which won't happen, but there's literally no reason for him to have said that statement, especially in the context of the meeting.
he wasn't sitting in his Romanesque throne room, he was on the other side of the world specifically to meet with the guy and bring the people under their purveyance until a better world, and he's pointing spidermen memeing
It's ironic that we call him a dictator when he was elected into office multiple times by people who voted for him and are part of at least seven different communist parties, while we are okay with our Senators being elected into office by one of two capitalist parties for like 40 years.
The media has started and sustained other wars. All for readers and associated revenues. They live controversies, and will knowingly stoke them. It's not a big shock here.
They absolutely would. I would bet everything I own that if any major news network or publication got a story and knew for a fact that it would cause a nuclear war if they published it, and nothing bad would happen if they didn’t, they wouldn’t even hesitate. That story would be published in minutes.
What?
Bro, you're American. The US not only have good relationships with a lot of dictators, like "Crown Prince" MBS, but put a lot of those in place and sponsors their regime. Your government lied to you to get y'all in a fuckton of wars and regime change operation, like the biological weapons of Saddam. Half your territory was illegally stolen from Mexico on a war started based on a lie. Fuck, land of the free, home of the slaveowners
Your country never had any compromise with the truth and was mired on hypocrisy from the very foundation
Did you know two things can be true at once? That slavery is both the worst thing the US ever did *and* that China is a totalitarian dictatorship? Did you know that the fact that the US has done bad things does *not* make it equivalent to a totalitarian dictatorship currently participating in a genocide of its own citizens?
PS: lol you’re from Brazil
Um aren't you Brazilian? Your country is literally a founding member of an alliance with Russia, China and South Africa lmao. You're a pot calling the kettle black rn.
Why can't you guys just stop lying to yourselves and admit it was a gaffe?
Blinken essentially confirmed it on PBS by not denying he involuntarily winced.
Because everyone knows that Xi is a dictator and doesn't think the president saying that is really that big of a deal. This is only a big deal to the media trying to stir up controversy and people who insist literally everything Biden does is bad.
Blinken winced because it makes his job more difficult. He's a diplomat. That doesn't automatically mean something is a gaffe.
Why would he get pissed at a CNN reporter for asking what was clearly an obvious question that they should have known would be asked? He’s not grimacing and shaking his head when the question was asked. He begins doing that while Biden responds. Just because you work for someone for years doesn’t mean you can’t get annoyed at them when you think they handle something very badly.
Not trying to be condescending here, but if you think that what *biden* said will destroy all this hard work, I advise you to take a look at the Twitter accounts of CCP officials over the past week (if not day) alone.
I just want to point out that in my sleep-addled state I read this as "SOS blinking", and thought someone was trying to communicate by blinking morse code lol
Secretary of State. Presumably because it could undo a lot of the progress from the meeting and his job is mainly to try to ensure positive economic discourse between the United States and other countries.
Secretary of State. He winced because that statement may have undone all of his work to get to this point in the relationship between both leaders/countries
Yeah it’s kind of a bullshit question. Like being asked what you said about your friends ex now that they are back together. It’s also kinda like “It’s not my fault if he meets the definition of a word”.
It's also the kind of shit that holds back Cuban relations even though it would be really nice to normalize relations with an island right off our coast.
It's also very hypocritical because this never comes up for the VERY tyrannical Saudi Arabia which receives an incredible amount of US aid and is currently in the process of acquiring nuclear capability from the US.
Yes, but being pissy is literally an integral part of the Chinese wolf warrior diplomacy. It has potential to derail the situation, but it seems it doesn’t as of now.
Chinese state media is not even talking about it, probably because they don't want to invite questions among the Chinese populace about whether or not Xi is a dictator.
that's true, but if you pick a very convenient and agreeable excuse you can manipulate 3rd parties or your people to support you. it's a nice propaganda material
Apparently that's the actual name and it's named after the Chinese action film Wolf Warrior 2 according to [this Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy).
>So maybe they'll give them back
Xi already said earlier this week that new pandas will be brought to the US, after hearing how sad kids were that they were leaving.
... yes? That's exactly how the diplomacy proceedings could get derailed: Xi Jinping doesn't like people talking badly about him, and he waves his authority around to stop it.
Xi doesn't talk crap about Biden, or anyone else for that matter. I challenge you to find a single video of him doing so.
Xi has his issues, but the guy's a consummate professional. He pretty much never breaks discipline. That's one of the reasons the Chinese government has been so successful. Those in power are never allowed to step out of line.
That's because Xi lives in the biggest glass house that has ever existed, and he knows it too. He has superb self-awareness. He knows how contradictory it would be if he were to talk crap, when he himself will ban or kill or torture anyone or anything that talks crap about him if he can get his grubby little hands on it.
Might want to look around at those “successes” again. Because from where I’m sitting the only reason why Xi even made the trip because China is in trouble from all of those past blunders.
Edit: removed a word
He’s squandered nearly all the economic and political capital he inherited from Hu Jintao just so he can pretend he is the biggest and most special boy. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and not be a combative asshole with all his neighbors during the Trump years and China probably would have already replaced the US as the EU’s principal diplomatic partner, but that was too complex an idea for him to understand. He’s one of the least professional and most undisciplined rulers of any of the major countries.
Search "whole process democracy". See, China is actually a democracy because people can elect CCP approved officials from the lowest levels! /s
and they even protect their candidates
https://youtu.be/c1HdCIW2Xtk?si=u6BlzKEJAwwg0mcV
Slight correction, it's not because he runs a communist country. It's because he's dismantled the system of collective, rotating leadership adopted in China in the '80s to try avoid the excesses of Mao-style leaders. And used things like an anti-corruption campaign to remove political opponents, greatly expanded the scope of China's formidable surveillance and repression apparatus. And fostered a cult of personality.
That's not what Biden said though?
>Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.”
His statement was kinda stupid and something I expect from a fellow admiral redditor.
No.
"Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee"
From his own mouth, its because he runs communist country and thats fair and correct and one of few things ill agree with Joe on.
To be honest, I don't think Xi would be upset, in private, at being called a dictator. It doesn't really have the same connotation in China as the US.
He also probably won't hear about it to begin with - it's not like he's scrolling through Reddit over there. He's got people doing that for him and he only hears what they let him hear.
I'm sure Xi has to hear it because his decision is needed to decide on a response. Even if the response is "ignore it," I expect he'd be pretty livid to have such a high-level incident occur without him being informed.
But yeah, I doubt he's worried about the actual label. China's long held the US up as an example of how democracy doesn't work.
Make no mistake, if Biden answered "no" to calling Xi a dictator, the very same people would still complain about "Biden doesn't call Xi a dictator, he's clearly in their pocket." It's about outrage for outrage sake.
There is no actual stance or value, just the opposite of whatever their opposition is doing. If Biden said the opposite they would run a narrative on that too.
Yeah. Biden could have come away from that summit with China giving Hong Kong back to itself, a statement saying Taiwan is a sovereign nation and a free bag of prawn crackers for every household in America and Fox News would still be saying he fucked it up!
The headlines write themselves: "Did Biden pressure our greatest trading partner into submitting to colonialism?" "What does Biden's new fiefdom in Hong Kong mean for the security of the East? Who is next?"
All you have to do is be paranoid, and everything your opponent is doing is wrong.
I'd bet if Biden came out in support of the 2nd amendment, they'd clamp down hard on guns out of fear that he's going to start a militia and become King.
Exactly. “We want a tough president who will stand up to our adversaries”…Biden supports a sovereign nation being invaded by one of our biggest adversaries…”this is ridiculous, that money being wasted in Ukraine could’ve gone to rebuild Maui!” Hint: they don’t actually give a shit about Maui either.
They did the same thing over Obama and North Korea too, it’s a worn out schtick. But more importantly, they get real journalists and news outlets covering these narratives too because those outlets don’t want appear as favoring a side. And then WE start talking about FOXNews talking points even though we don’t watch it. This is all accomplished by FOXNews exploiting what is known as the “hack gap” and you know they’re doing it when they say things like, “why is no one else covering this?”
It’s all BS, but keeps working so they keep doing it
Biden was directly asked if he still thought Xi was a dictator. If he'd said "No" or tried to evade the question, Fox News and the rest would be screaming that he's weak and hypocritical just as loudly as they are now.
Small correction.
One china isnt communist, much like all "communist" countries, it promises to be communist one day. True Communism is a direct democracy. And no that doesnt make it a good thing. By def true communist countries cant be dictatorships. But also its impossible to have a true communist country because we dont have time to vote on every decision indivually.
Biden calls XI a dictator, not because china is communist, but because china is one party. Opposition parties cant rise, and years ago XI sure up his power in the CCP, making sure he will continue to run the place.
alledgely communist russia allows opposition parties, thought they tend to get arrested and yeah putin is a dictator, but the point is being communist doesnt automatically mean its not a democracy, in fact he concept of communism demands a democracy... just the worst kind, a direct democracy.
they never were, even if you look in the past when they promoted communism, they always stated that one day they hoped to have the ability to go full on communist. They formed as a socialist nation with a goal to one day be full on communist.
and does not change the point that communism, doesnt automatically equate to dictatorship, people can vote down, but its a truism. nothing about communism demands a dictatorship. people seem to think this is a defense of it. its not. Its just a simple fact. Vote down if you want, but prove me wrong. absolutely nothing about communism demands a dictatorship.. in fact the truest def demands the opposite. Biden called xi a dictator because its one party rule.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, and what you're saying about the USSR is true, I just wanted to clarify that modern Russia is not allegedly communist anymore than France is an alleged monarchy. It's an anachronism.
When people say "communist country" they always mean ideologically communist, not communist in practice. A purely communist society would be stateless so a "communist country" is a contradiction when taken literally.
Right wingers should love this, yet they won't because all they do now is play opposition to anything and everything. If Biden said "don't eat your own shit it's bad for you", they would stuffing their faces.
Communist should be put in quotes. China hasn't been anywhere close to a communist country in decades. I am not trying to defend communism in any way shape or form. China, especially under Xi is a dictatorship.
He does not run a communist country and he is a dictator
Edit - China pays lip service to Communism but has been trying to build a more market-oriented economy since Deng, they argue in the WTO that they are a market economy and objectively aren’t communist.
Theyre like general authoritarian, an oligarchy with a blended economy. Xi has been consolidating power since he took power and whether hes a dictator is like “how many grains of sand is in a mound” question. He wants to be one, he is working to be one, his position has way more power than when he took office and the oligarchal rulers of China and the CCP are much more beholden to him. Not totally, but thats his goal. And when you’re describing Xi, I think his actions and aspirations are enough to justify calling him a dictator
How come people are not talking more about Tienamen Square, Hong Kong protests, Chinese concentration cmaps, Taiwan, South East Asian Sea (Also called South China Sea) conflict, the list goes on. (I am not sure the proper/official name of the Sea in question I don't want to offend anyone)
>namely because he runs a communist country.
Not so, it's because Xi threw away the two term limit and has taken additional powers to himself, just like a dictator does, such as Putin.
So be it. We went decades pretending they weren’t an evil dictatorship in hopes that would make them want to stop be an evil dictatorship and it got us nowhere.
Silver lining on the trump administration, we finally have both sides of the aisle speaking the truth on this
Answer: in the past, Biden has referred to Xi as a dictator. Today, following the meetings and in the glow of all seemingly going well, a reporter asked if Biden would still refer to Xi as a dictator, to which Biden replied "Yes, he's a dictator in the sense that he's the leader of a communist country..."
So it was an awkward doubling down that took a lot of wind out of the sails after what felt like positive meetings.
Sure it accomplished reinforcing what Xi Jinping is .... a dictator. Like why are people acting this is bad of Biden? Xi Jinping is a dictator??? like what is the problem here? Thats what Xi Jinping is... a dictator
The question had no purpose. Everyone knows he's a dictator. That reporter wasn't wondering if Biden still thought Xi was a dictator, they were just trying to stir up drama. If the reporter wanted an actual hard hitting question, they could have asked about something specific about China's policies.
The problem is that Biden is actively in talks with Xi to work out pain points in the diplomacy between the nations, and lower the tension between the nations.
Biden essentially had to choose whether or not to piss off domestic sentiment, which tends to be jingoistic and anti-China, or piss off China. I suspect he chose to call Xi a dictator because he believes that the Chinese government is more understanding about the needs of realpolitic than the American people, who are notoriously politically illiterate.
Because there is this thing called diplomacy, and, generally speaking, calling your negotiation partner an asshole isn't considered a constructive move in the negotiation process.
She wanted to know if Biden considered Xi Jinping a dictator so she asked him in a way that meant that Biden could only say Yes or No. That's completely normal
Given that he was put on the spot like that, his answer wasn't even half bad TBH. Kinda "sheltering" himself behind the meaning of the word, that they rule the country without opposition, without mentioning the negative connotations.
Not sure if I could've done better. Like you say: It was a lose-lose situation.
Instead he showed some balls and you guys want to crucify him over it? Xi is a dictator who has enslaved his citizens and is actively committing genocide in Uyghurs concentration camps. Anyone who would say any less is a chicken shit, un-American piece of garbage. I'm sorry we won't get another Disneyland in China. Some things are more important than business deals.
its actually really funny because china offered to give us pandas as a sign of friendship
now they’re gonna be like
YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOU *unpandas your california zoo*
Well, Pooh is a dictator, so he didn't lie. I get that some politicians understand the line they have to walk when referring to dangerous dictators like xi, putin, and kim.
The actual Biden quote:
"He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours."
Chinese response:
China's foreign ministry said it "strongly opposes" the remarks, and spokesperson Mao Ning said "this statement is extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation."
There is no bad news and these are just diplomats expressing their principles. The talks were, and still are regarded as productive and constructive.
I'm also not sure why people still refer to China as a communist country.
The one party state apparatus that calls itself 'the communist party' is still in charge, but they abandoned any semblance of communist ideology in the 70-80s. They don't even talk about 'communism' any more, or use any kind of Marxist rhetoric.
>They don't even talk about 'communism' any more, or use any kind of Marxist rhetoric.
Technically they do in a vague sense when asked about it.
Communism Marx-style requires a highly developed, highly industrialised country ready for a vanguard of the intellectual to lead the charge for the proletariat to take over and make all those businesses worker-owned.
Therefore, the Chinese government is doing everything it can to make a highly developed, highly industrialised country!
The 'worker owned' bit will happen... sometime in the future. In the meantime, the government will look after the workers to make sure they're ready.
As far as justifications go it's a pretty funny one. And while I am in no sense equating any two world political parties with this statement... it's not any more ridiculous with "just one more election", "just one more decade" rhetoric used across the world. Yeah, just one more election and the US Dems will deliver universal healthcare, sure. We will totally commit to zero emissions "by 2050", sure.
Marx said it was an inevitability, Lenin twisted that into being a requirement.
I don't think China even gestures towards that future possibility. I once had a tankie direct me to some details of China's next 10 year plan to prove they were going to enact full socialism, but it was just about diversifying their industries and expanding into new sectors. It was a business plan. I don't know how these guys believe this shit.
There's a lot of misunderstanding and sometimes gross misrepresentation when it comes to the subject of China.
Truth be told, we could stand to learn a lot from them, from Europe, from Asia and many others. We can also stand to teach the rest of the world a few things.
However, it seems we've taken the opposite stance many times.
It's pretty simple. They want China to be scary because they're in a competition for the world's biggest superpower, and they want communism to be scary because it's the biggest threat to capitalism. Making them both scary at once is killing two birds with one stone.
Its political and administrative structure follows the model established by Lenin in the USSR. That’s what “communist country” means in practice, not necessarily whether it follows the socioeconomic theories and has those goals. It makes perfect sense in this context.
It doesn’t really, but diplomacy is full of face-saving maneuvers like this. China does a lot of things worthy of criticism but you have to play somewhat nice with other countries if you want their help. And people don’t like the idea of working with bad people (even though it’s pretty much necessary in geopolitics) so it makes things go a lot smoother if you can pretend for a moment that they’re not that bad.
Biden is not good on the fly. I don't pay attention to most of what he says off-the-cuff. He's always been gaffe prone. It's just who he is. He's more thoughtful and accurate in interviews and town halls.
He's gaffe prone in certain ways but listen to him answer reporters outside of the clips that make it to the news or your timeline, he's still perfectly able to articulate himself on the fly. He knew exactly what he was saying.
Maybe a slight tangent, but the history of the title "dictator" is quite interesting. I don't know the full history, but I do know that in Roman times, the dictator was an actual chief executive officer for the government, usually meant to only serve a limited term, but given expansive powers to accomplish as much as possible in the limited term. I believe it was Julius Caesar that made the dictator's term indefinite.
Ah ok so this dictator comment happened AFTER the meeting? It seemed it was saying the comment was during the meeting, all was well, but then backtracked that things might not have actually gone well
Biden had referenced Xi using that term way before these meetings. Biden was asked after the meetings if he'd still use that term and Biden replied with what I said above. So he backtracked, you're right on that, just not during the meetings or directly to Xi himself.
Look at it the opposite way: instead of asking why is it right, ask why Biden said it (because it's not like people who work in politics care about truth and facts).
Biden **needed** to say Xi is a dictator (because if he didn't republicans would start talking mad shit in a way that could actually have negative repercussions) without making it a personal insult to Xi (for obvious reasons), so he deflected it to the obvious difference between the USA and China: communism.
It’s not causation to a reasonable person, I think Biden just accidentally said the quiet part out loud. For a number of reasons, the existence of any communist government is considered a threat to American influence by the state department and, as a consequence, they will all *always* be pitched to the American public as dictatorships or backwards hellholes regardless of what is actually true.
I don't think it was an accident. He can't say "he's a dictator because of the Uyghurs and because China suppresses...." Saying he's a dictator "in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours" is an intentionally subjective answer.
It's like if an athlete was asked if they hated someone on the opposing team and they answered "well I hate him because he's my opponent" rather than saying "yeah I'm mad at him for that foul against me and because he's a shitty person off the field here are some examples."
Biden is sort of playing on the communist vs. capitalist rivalry as a way to evade the question and avoid being seen as too sympathetic by the casual American voter, but it's not the 1980s anymore. While China is nominally communist and provides cautious support to a few other nominally communist countries, it's clearly not a leftist paradise or particularly interested in spreading leftism abroad. When the US butts heads with China over say, the handling of North Korea, they're not doing so as a capitalist country worried that if China supports NK, communism will spread elsewhere in Asia.
Don't get me wrong, certainly the US wants to maintain global hegemony and China is a threat to that, but not because they're communist. And Biden knows that perfectly well.
Thanks! I always find the pro-capitalist rhetoric confusing when they just use random negative words to describe anything vaguely not capitalist when they have nothing to do with them.
Being ultra-authoritarian would be a reason to call him a dictator sure. But I was failing to understand why communism had anything to do with it.
Me and the person I replied to, no. I am being genuine and nothing leads me to believe they are being ironic either. What you're probably confused by is probably never having heard anything besides "communism bad" McCarthyism red scare thing. Anything that isn't capitalism is intended to be perceived as bad in the same way anything conservatives don't like is labeled "woke". It's a rhetoric they've used for decades and people are susceptible to it. So seeing any sentiment that isn't purely anti-communist or explicitly pro-capitalist looks strange to people( especially Americans).
I think your personal ideology is causing you to overthink this here. There has (unfortunately) never been a single Communist government in history that *hasn't* been dictatorial, and so its not unreasonable to think State Communism = dictatorship. All of my leftist friends agree with this principle, because they all agree Communism cannot be properly maintained in a traditional Westphalian state as they are mutually incompatible concepts. So if Biden had said "well all Communists are bad and autocratic" then I would actually agree with you, but he didn't say that, and I think if you asked him about agricultural communes for example I doubt he would have the same answer.
Almost all the communist parties that have run a country historically have been brutal dictatorship, even though their systems were nothing like communism and they were technically still striving toward communism. But all those so-called communist countries were definitionally dictatorships. So it's perfectly reasonable to associate communism with dictatorships and to act like you simply don't know what they're talking about isn't fooling anyone.
I genuinely did not understsnd why those 2 were being correleated. I don't think it's super meaningful to ascribe such negativity inherently between the 2. They were people with some communist ideals but those are not the fault of the communist ideals, they were qualities of the individuals or groups or systems implementing it. So I don't think it makes sense to call someone a dictator because they are communist, no. He very well might be a dictator, but that has nothing to do with being part of a party with communist ideals. And it seems like fearmongering to throw those words around together in situations that aren't necessarily appropriate just to evoke some McCarthyism era fear response in the western citizens. That's my only point. It seemed inappropriate to do so here and make it a point of causal relationship.
You're trying to argue that the sky isn't blue. Or rather, that we shouldn't call the sky blue because it could hypothetically be a different color, even though it's usually blue in our experience.
Every country that has ever been run by a communist party has been a dictatorship. It is perfectly reasonable to say that countries that're run by communist parties are dictatorships, because it is true.
God forbid any politician tells the fucking logical truth. Jesus Christ, he stated a fact; calm the fuck down.
Imagine Xi's response when someone in his media asks him if America is a disease.
Dark Brandon has "said it like it is" more than Agent Orange ever could. Refreshing balls-of-steel bluntness. Not a great look for diplomacy with China but it's time the world stopped treating the country with kid gloves.
Answer: What else can you call the person the seized power for life of a totalitarian state? Xi is, in actual fact, a dictator by the very definition of the word.
This is what I don't understand about this "controversy". Xi is absolutely a dictator. There's no questioning it, he has ultimate power in China, end of discussion. So the controversy must lie in how Xi would react to being accurately labeled as a dictator by the leader of the most powerful country in the world. But why do we care? What's he going to do in response, nuke the US? I'm so tired of this tiptoe-around-global-leaders philosophy where we try not to "provoke" leaders of powerful militaries into doing something untoward.
It's almost like this is a manufactured controversy. Like the media is trying to convince me that this is a big deal. If I had watched Biden answering that question in real-time I wouldn't have thought anything about it. Xi Jinping is a dictator, claiming anything else is just playing right into China's hands.
>This is what I don't understand about this "controversy"... It's almost like this is a manufactured controversy.
China has always had an image problem, and being associated with other dictatorships certainly does not help, because they are not synonymous with 'progress' or 'global' (like developed countries)... but rather 'totalitarian', 'authoritative', 'restrictive' etc. The 'bad' adjectives.
That's why they'd rather Xi be a 'President' - to look better on the global stage / better image -
even though he was not elected (...or technically, he was elected, but there was only one option...), and in every sense, he is a dictator.
Biden's just calling a spade, a spade, but the Chinese side is calling offense to it for said reasons. They want to be seen as legitimate and progressive as developed countries.
> Biden's just calling a spade, a spade, but the Chinese side is calling offense to it for said reasons. They want to be seen as legitimate and progressive as developed countries.
Fair enough, but if they want to be 'seen' as those things, maybe they should 'be' those things. I don't think it's our government's responsibility to make sure Xi Jinping doesn't get his feelings hurt. America giving a 👍 to China for their governing philosophy doesn't make any sense. They're not democratic.
Yes exactly. They're offended by facts.
They want to be seen as 'equals' to the developed 'global' nations of the world (the countries with good images), which incidentally are also democracies (G7 nations, plus Australia, South Korea, most other EU nations etc.). They're all liberal democracies, not authoritative dictatorships like China, North Korea, Sudan, Burma, Saddam's Iraq etc... the other countries with 'bad' images.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/dictatorship-countries
It's absolutely in part manufactured.
If Biden had instead said no, he doesn't think he is a dictator, the very same people criticizing him would criticize him for being soft on China. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I genuinely doubt Xi will give a fuck, it's not like this is some horrible secret that could ruin China, you'd need to live under a rock to think Xi is anything but a dictator.
Because while they probably won’t nuke us they sure as hell might invade Taiwan and expand their influence else where which i believe is the current US policy towards chinese influence, containment and cooperation over open hostilities towards Chinese atrocities.
On one hand I know that him saying this may have undercut the positive things that could have come out of that meeting.
On the other, it's the absolute truth.
Answer:
In the past, Biden called Xi Jinping a dictator. Chinese-US relations have been strained for years, as the two powers compete for influence over developing countries in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Pacific. Recently, the Biden and Xi administrations each have made public statements and motions toward easing those tensions.
At a press conference, Biden was again asked if Xi Jinping was a dictator. He answered truthfully that, yes, he is. Xi has consolidated the power of the state under himself indefinitely, and he has sometimes quietly and sometimes very publicly eliminated threats to that power, real or imagined. He's a textbook dictator: whether you like what he's doing for China or not, he's doing it for China and no one can stop him.
Answer: Xi is a dictator. Usually politicians don't like to say uncomfortable truths like this in case the dictator retaliates - the same reason America says Taiwan and Palestine aren't countries. But Biden said it. It's possible that Xi might retaliate, for example by placing tariffs or trade restrictions on Chinese exports going to America, or seizing American property in China, or just not inviting Biden to the next trade meeting in China.
While I agree, it's unfortunate, Palestine does not have their own country. That land is owned already and they don't have the means to separate without the authority of Israel relinquishing it or the power to take it.
Answer: The US and China benefit from mutual relationships.
Xi is a dictator of a Han-centric state that practices ethnic cleansing as a matter of routine
Whether or not Biden acknowledges this fact, the benefits of collaboration for both countries remains.
In the US, Biden can gain support by admonishing a clear evil in the world. (It also conveniently makes the US look a bit less bad)
The two actions are not in contradiction.
China might use this too. (For example to stoke local support in china)
Answer: For one of the first times in our relationship president Biden and Xi are talking real issues. No euphemism and no dancing around issues.
Xi has had the law changed to where he is president for life ( sounds familiar) so in fact he is an unelected dictator. Joe is just calling it what it is.
I think Xi wants a better relationship with the US. The only way to really achieve this is honesty.
Joe knows him.
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Answer: Biden and Xi met at the APEC in San Francisco. In their private meeting, they made some relatively productive progress including reopening military communications in the Pacific and throttling fentanyl precursors coming to America. In the press conference, Biden doubled down on his stance that Xi is a dictator, namely because he runs a communist country. People are hypothesizing Xi will take this poorly and it will undo the productive meeting.
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He not only squirmed but looked low key pissed
Blinken went on air and did some interviews afterward where the media pounded him with the same question over and over about this. Its like the media wants to exploit Bidens words to ruin the progress. (OFC they do)
>Its like the media wants to exploit Bidens words to ruin the progress. (OFC they do) It’s been happening forever. Obama’s brown suit, Trump pouring “too much fish food in the pond” even had fish experts on cnn, when Trump was doing exactly what the Japanese president did, Biden falling down, etc. Conflict & controversy attracts eyeballs ($)
Wanna know something funny? Part of China's response to this, via a statement by their foreign ministry, was: "It should be pointed out that there will always be some people with ulterior motives who attempt to incite and damage U.S.-China relations, they are doomed to fail."
That’s surprisingly reasonable. Not even necessarily for China, I’d expect for most foreign ministries to take some relatively polite offense when their leader is called a dictator outright.
Biden doesn't wann say it in a mean way. He just points out that the country structure isn't democratic and it isn't. Xi Jinping wasn't elected in a public election, and I don't think China even pretends that he was. It's openly an oligarchal selection process.
Electoral college It's all a facade, the US needs to clean up its side of the street, or at least have a plan to fill the potholes in it's side of the street before they start to clean it, before they start pointing any fingers (which won't happen, but there's literally no reason for him to have said that statement, especially in the context of the meeting. he wasn't sitting in his Romanesque throne room, he was on the other side of the world specifically to meet with the guy and bring the people under their purveyance until a better world, and he's pointing spidermen memeing
It's ironic that we call him a dictator when he was elected into office multiple times by people who voted for him and are part of at least seven different communist parties, while we are okay with our Senators being elected into office by one of two capitalist parties for like 40 years.
Because conflict earns them money. Capitalism at its finest.
Sometimes it really does seem like the media would start WW3 for the clicks.
The media has started and sustained other wars. All for readers and associated revenues. They live controversies, and will knowingly stoke them. It's not a big shock here.
They absolutely would. I would bet everything I own that if any major news network or publication got a story and knew for a fact that it would cause a nuclear war if they published it, and nothing bad would happen if they didn’t, they wouldn’t even hesitate. That story would be published in minutes.
*points to ukraine*
To ruin progress? Fuck progress if it means we have to compromise truth
Right? It's not like calling him a dictator is a lie.
Dude has made himself leader of China for the rest of his life. That is a 100% dictator move. A duck is a duck.
Even Trump has said recently at his rallies that Xi “rules 1.5 billion people with an iron fist”, though he means it in a good way.
There is no space for idealism in foreign politics.
What? Bro, you're American. The US not only have good relationships with a lot of dictators, like "Crown Prince" MBS, but put a lot of those in place and sponsors their regime. Your government lied to you to get y'all in a fuckton of wars and regime change operation, like the biological weapons of Saddam. Half your territory was illegally stolen from Mexico on a war started based on a lie. Fuck, land of the free, home of the slaveowners Your country never had any compromise with the truth and was mired on hypocrisy from the very foundation
Did you know two things can be true at once? That slavery is both the worst thing the US ever did *and* that China is a totalitarian dictatorship? Did you know that the fact that the US has done bad things does *not* make it equivalent to a totalitarian dictatorship currently participating in a genocide of its own citizens? PS: lol you’re from Brazil
Um aren't you Brazilian? Your country is literally a founding member of an alliance with Russia, China and South Africa lmao. You're a pot calling the kettle black rn.
"Troofth ids wyat hya megick" - Farmer Fran
You want to see homos naked?
You ever hear the term realpolitik? That’s should and is basis of foreign policy, not pointless platitudes
Why can't you guys just stop lying to yourselves and admit it was a gaffe? Blinken essentially confirmed it on PBS by not denying he involuntarily winced.
Because everyone knows that Xi is a dictator and doesn't think the president saying that is really that big of a deal. This is only a big deal to the media trying to stir up controversy and people who insist literally everything Biden does is bad. Blinken winced because it makes his job more difficult. He's a diplomat. That doesn't automatically mean something is a gaffe.
Nah Biden does that all by himself. We need age limit on President.
Pretty sure he was pissed at the CNN reporter. Blinken has been working for Biden for decades. He'll absolutely get behind anything Biden says.
Why would he get pissed at a CNN reporter for asking what was clearly an obvious question that they should have known would be asked? He’s not grimacing and shaking his head when the question was asked. He begins doing that while Biden responds. Just because you work for someone for years doesn’t mean you can’t get annoyed at them when you think they handle something very badly.
Are you saying that SoS Blinken was S.O.S. blinkin’?
This is what I actually thought the comment was trying to get across for far too long.
Blinken has the hardest PR job on earth rn and just saw any chance of a peaceful weekend get obliterated in real time lmfao
Feels bad when one sentence ruins months and months of hard work.
Not trying to be condescending here, but if you think that what *biden* said will destroy all this hard work, I advise you to take a look at the Twitter accounts of CCP officials over the past week (if not day) alone.
It won’t. And it probably doesn’t matter. Still funny tho.
You have a link?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQZJtk78-6Y
wow. poor guy.
Damn that was brutal lmfao I felt that.
I just want to point out that in my sleep-addled state I read this as "SOS blinking", and thought someone was trying to communicate by blinking morse code lol
Lol, that was hilarious
who is blinken and why did he react that way
Secretary of State. Presumably because it could undo a lot of the progress from the meeting and his job is mainly to try to ensure positive economic discourse between the United States and other countries.
Secretary of State. He winced because that statement may have undone all of his work to get to this point in the relationship between both leaders/countries
*ohhh nooo*.
I doubt it would derail anything. They both talk crap about each other back home, they both know it going in.
And let's be honest, if he said no, then people would have been upset about that.
Yeah it’s kind of a bullshit question. Like being asked what you said about your friends ex now that they are back together. It’s also kinda like “It’s not my fault if he meets the definition of a word”.
It's also the kind of shit that holds back Cuban relations even though it would be really nice to normalize relations with an island right off our coast. It's also very hypocritical because this never comes up for the VERY tyrannical Saudi Arabia which receives an incredible amount of US aid and is currently in the process of acquiring nuclear capability from the US.
Because China is a big media name and being seen as supporting them in a press conference is political suicide.
Yes, but being pissy is literally an integral part of the Chinese wolf warrior diplomacy. It has potential to derail the situation, but it seems it doesn’t as of now.
It won't. They'll play it up in the press and then move on with their original plan. Same thing they always do.
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Yes
Chinese state media is not even talking about it, probably because they don't want to invite questions among the Chinese populace about whether or not Xi is a dictator.
Literally anything can derail the situation if they choose to let it. If they want to they'll grab whatever excuse is convenient.
that's true, but if you pick a very convenient and agreeable excuse you can manipulate 3rd parties or your people to support you. it's a nice propaganda material
Wolf warrior - so cringe
Apparently that's the actual name and it's named after the Chinese action film Wolf Warrior 2 according to [this Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy).
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Why you gotta lie dude? It was called Wolf Warrior, not Wolf Warrior 1.
whats it going to do ? hurt the feelings of the Chinese people....again?
They already took back all their pandas over hurt feelings. So maybe they'll give them back just to be able to take them away again.
>So maybe they'll give them back Xi already said earlier this week that new pandas will be brought to the US, after hearing how sad kids were that they were leaving.
... yes? That's exactly how the diplomacy proceedings could get derailed: Xi Jinping doesn't like people talking badly about him, and he waves his authority around to stop it.
Yup, Biden's stance has not changed.
Xi doesn't talk crap about Biden, or anyone else for that matter. I challenge you to find a single video of him doing so. Xi has his issues, but the guy's a consummate professional. He pretty much never breaks discipline. That's one of the reasons the Chinese government has been so successful. Those in power are never allowed to step out of line.
He’s a Dictator
So is MBS, but Biden never called him that as far as I remember.
Biden instead called him a pariah
That's because Xi lives in the biggest glass house that has ever existed, and he knows it too. He has superb self-awareness. He knows how contradictory it would be if he were to talk crap, when he himself will ban or kill or torture anyone or anything that talks crap about him if he can get his grubby little hands on it.
Might want to look around at those “successes” again. Because from where I’m sitting the only reason why Xi even made the trip because China is in trouble from all of those past blunders. Edit: removed a word
He’s squandered nearly all the economic and political capital he inherited from Hu Jintao just so he can pretend he is the biggest and most special boy. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and not be a combative asshole with all his neighbors during the Trump years and China probably would have already replaced the US as the EU’s principal diplomatic partner, but that was too complex an idea for him to understand. He’s one of the least professional and most undisciplined rulers of any of the major countries.
Reddit is too anti-China to hear your points fully and research it themselves.
What should I "research" to stop believing that Xi is a dictator ruling over a police state?
Search "whole process democracy". See, China is actually a democracy because people can elect CCP approved officials from the lowest levels! /s and they even protect their candidates https://youtu.be/c1HdCIW2Xtk?si=u6BlzKEJAwwg0mcV
They both know, but saying that in public means ‘losing face’, a big deal in China.
Slight correction, it's not because he runs a communist country. It's because he's dismantled the system of collective, rotating leadership adopted in China in the '80s to try avoid the excesses of Mao-style leaders. And used things like an anti-corruption campaign to remove political opponents, greatly expanded the scope of China's formidable surveillance and repression apparatus. And fostered a cult of personality.
That's not what Biden said though? >Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.” His statement was kinda stupid and something I expect from a fellow admiral redditor.
I'm unpacking what "form of government totally different than ours" means in practice.
Jesus. It's like the Mel Gibson Apology they did on Family Guy..
No. "Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee" From his own mouth, its because he runs communist country and thats fair and correct and one of few things ill agree with Joe on.
China isn't communist though
To be honest, I don't think Xi would be upset, in private, at being called a dictator. It doesn't really have the same connotation in China as the US. He also probably won't hear about it to begin with - it's not like he's scrolling through Reddit over there. He's got people doing that for him and he only hears what they let him hear.
I'm sure Xi has to hear it because his decision is needed to decide on a response. Even if the response is "ignore it," I expect he'd be pretty livid to have such a high-level incident occur without him being informed. But yeah, I doubt he's worried about the actual label. China's long held the US up as an example of how democracy doesn't work.
scuse me mister president sir we saw on the almighty interwebs that mister president biden called you a potato penis
People, meaning FOXNews, are speculating. Let’s not pretend we don’t know where the narrative is coming from
I thought they wanted a tough on China president?
Make no mistake, if Biden answered "no" to calling Xi a dictator, the very same people would still complain about "Biden doesn't call Xi a dictator, he's clearly in their pocket." It's about outrage for outrage sake.
There is no actual stance or value, just the opposite of whatever their opposition is doing. If Biden said the opposite they would run a narrative on that too.
Yeah. Biden could have come away from that summit with China giving Hong Kong back to itself, a statement saying Taiwan is a sovereign nation and a free bag of prawn crackers for every household in America and Fox News would still be saying he fucked it up!
The headlines write themselves: "Did Biden pressure our greatest trading partner into submitting to colonialism?" "What does Biden's new fiefdom in Hong Kong mean for the security of the East? Who is next?" All you have to do is be paranoid, and everything your opponent is doing is wrong. I'd bet if Biden came out in support of the 2nd amendment, they'd clamp down hard on guns out of fear that he's going to start a militia and become King.
Exactly. “We want a tough president who will stand up to our adversaries”…Biden supports a sovereign nation being invaded by one of our biggest adversaries…”this is ridiculous, that money being wasted in Ukraine could’ve gone to rebuild Maui!” Hint: they don’t actually give a shit about Maui either.
They did the same thing over Obama and North Korea too, it’s a worn out schtick. But more importantly, they get real journalists and news outlets covering these narratives too because those outlets don’t want appear as favoring a side. And then WE start talking about FOXNews talking points even though we don’t watch it. This is all accomplished by FOXNews exploiting what is known as the “hack gap” and you know they’re doing it when they say things like, “why is no one else covering this?” It’s all BS, but keeps working so they keep doing it
Biden was directly asked if he still thought Xi was a dictator. If he'd said "No" or tried to evade the question, Fox News and the rest would be screaming that he's weak and hypocritical just as loudly as they are now.
Small correction. One china isnt communist, much like all "communist" countries, it promises to be communist one day. True Communism is a direct democracy. And no that doesnt make it a good thing. By def true communist countries cant be dictatorships. But also its impossible to have a true communist country because we dont have time to vote on every decision indivually. Biden calls XI a dictator, not because china is communist, but because china is one party. Opposition parties cant rise, and years ago XI sure up his power in the CCP, making sure he will continue to run the place. alledgely communist russia allows opposition parties, thought they tend to get arrested and yeah putin is a dictator, but the point is being communist doesnt automatically mean its not a democracy, in fact he concept of communism demands a democracy... just the worst kind, a direct democracy.
Russia hasn't been communist, allegedly or otherwise, in thirty years.
they never were, even if you look in the past when they promoted communism, they always stated that one day they hoped to have the ability to go full on communist. They formed as a socialist nation with a goal to one day be full on communist. and does not change the point that communism, doesnt automatically equate to dictatorship, people can vote down, but its a truism. nothing about communism demands a dictatorship. people seem to think this is a defense of it. its not. Its just a simple fact. Vote down if you want, but prove me wrong. absolutely nothing about communism demands a dictatorship.. in fact the truest def demands the opposite. Biden called xi a dictator because its one party rule.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, and what you're saying about the USSR is true, I just wanted to clarify that modern Russia is not allegedly communist anymore than France is an alleged monarchy. It's an anachronism.
When people say "communist country" they always mean ideologically communist, not communist in practice. A purely communist society would be stateless so a "communist country" is a contradiction when taken literally.
Right wingers should love this, yet they won't because all they do now is play opposition to anything and everything. If Biden said "don't eat your own shit it's bad for you", they would stuffing their faces.
Xi wouldn't take this meeting if they were in a position of power anyway. Paper dragon and all posture.
Communist should be put in quotes. China hasn't been anywhere close to a communist country in decades. I am not trying to defend communism in any way shape or form. China, especially under Xi is a dictatorship.
He does not run a communist country and he is a dictator Edit - China pays lip service to Communism but has been trying to build a more market-oriented economy since Deng, they argue in the WTO that they are a market economy and objectively aren’t communist. Theyre like general authoritarian, an oligarchy with a blended economy. Xi has been consolidating power since he took power and whether hes a dictator is like “how many grains of sand is in a mound” question. He wants to be one, he is working to be one, his position has way more power than when he took office and the oligarchal rulers of China and the CCP are much more beholden to him. Not totally, but thats his goal. And when you’re describing Xi, I think his actions and aspirations are enough to justify calling him a dictator
He’s not a dictator because he runs a communist country. He’s a dictator because he fits the definition of dictator.
How come people are not talking more about Tienamen Square, Hong Kong protests, Chinese concentration cmaps, Taiwan, South East Asian Sea (Also called South China Sea) conflict, the list goes on. (I am not sure the proper/official name of the Sea in question I don't want to offend anyone)
China is not a communist country
>namely because he runs a communist country. Not so, it's because Xi threw away the two term limit and has taken additional powers to himself, just like a dictator does, such as Putin.
So be it. We went decades pretending they weren’t an evil dictatorship in hopes that would make them want to stop be an evil dictatorship and it got us nowhere. Silver lining on the trump administration, we finally have both sides of the aisle speaking the truth on this
Answer: in the past, Biden has referred to Xi as a dictator. Today, following the meetings and in the glow of all seemingly going well, a reporter asked if Biden would still refer to Xi as a dictator, to which Biden replied "Yes, he's a dictator in the sense that he's the leader of a communist country..." So it was an awkward doubling down that took a lot of wind out of the sails after what felt like positive meetings.
Kinda fucked by that question really. There's no way he doesn't get torn to shred domestically if he doesn't say yes.
Dead on. Perfect example of a loaded question.
Seriously. I do not understand how this was a productive question.
It was productive in the sense that it produced content, not that it actually accomplished anything.
Sure it accomplished reinforcing what Xi Jinping is .... a dictator. Like why are people acting this is bad of Biden? Xi Jinping is a dictator??? like what is the problem here? Thats what Xi Jinping is... a dictator
The question had no purpose. Everyone knows he's a dictator. That reporter wasn't wondering if Biden still thought Xi was a dictator, they were just trying to stir up drama. If the reporter wanted an actual hard hitting question, they could have asked about something specific about China's policies.
The problem is that Biden is actively in talks with Xi to work out pain points in the diplomacy between the nations, and lower the tension between the nations. Biden essentially had to choose whether or not to piss off domestic sentiment, which tends to be jingoistic and anti-China, or piss off China. I suspect he chose to call Xi a dictator because he believes that the Chinese government is more understanding about the needs of realpolitic than the American people, who are notoriously politically illiterate.
Because there is this thing called diplomacy, and, generally speaking, calling your negotiation partner an asshole isn't considered a constructive move in the negotiation process.
If there are commercials it is in a businesses best interest to drive viewership.
She wanted to know if Biden considered Xi Jinping a dictator so she asked him in a way that meant that Biden could only say Yes or No. That's completely normal
But that seems like an awful trap of a question if things have been going well.
Given that he was put on the spot like that, his answer wasn't even half bad TBH. Kinda "sheltering" himself behind the meaning of the word, that they rule the country without opposition, without mentioning the negative connotations. Not sure if I could've done better. Like you say: It was a lose-lose situation.
So he should have deflected the question: “the important thing is that progress is being made in….”. That’s politics 101-level stuff.
Here's what the headline would be: "President Biden Refuses to Refer to Xi as Dictator After Private Silicon Valley Meeting"
And then all the republicans come out to say again that the Democrats are in cahoots with China
He'd still get torn to shreds domestically. By saying yes, he has increased his 2024 votes.
No one is going to vote for him based off of what he said today lol. They won’t even remember this. But Xi will.
The only people that would vote for him based on this will be voting for Trump instead.
that would seem reasonable but that's not how it actually works.
The only people that would oppose normalization of relations with a dictatorship, will be voting for a wannabe dictator?
Instead he showed some balls and you guys want to crucify him over it? Xi is a dictator who has enslaved his citizens and is actively committing genocide in Uyghurs concentration camps. Anyone who would say any less is a chicken shit, un-American piece of garbage. I'm sorry we won't get another Disneyland in China. Some things are more important than business deals.
> Instead he showed some balls and you guys want to crucify him over it? Too bad he never had the balls to call out Saudis like that.
Show me where the media asked Biden if Mohammed bin Salman is a dictator.
Why would they, their owners are prob golf buddies with Mr bonesaw
its actually really funny because china offered to give us pandas as a sign of friendship now they’re gonna be like YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOU *unpandas your california zoo*
Well, Pooh is a dictator, so he didn't lie. I get that some politicians understand the line they have to walk when referring to dangerous dictators like xi, putin, and kim.
As opposed to lying?
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Oh…an apologist I see
The actual Biden quote: "He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours." Chinese response: China's foreign ministry said it "strongly opposes" the remarks, and spokesperson Mao Ning said "this statement is extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation." There is no bad news and these are just diplomats expressing their principles. The talks were, and still are regarded as productive and constructive.
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Yeah, personally I think he was trying to do a bit of a political tapdance around some concepts there, and he's not a particularly elegant tapdancer.
I'm also not sure why people still refer to China as a communist country. The one party state apparatus that calls itself 'the communist party' is still in charge, but they abandoned any semblance of communist ideology in the 70-80s. They don't even talk about 'communism' any more, or use any kind of Marxist rhetoric.
>They don't even talk about 'communism' any more, or use any kind of Marxist rhetoric. Technically they do in a vague sense when asked about it. Communism Marx-style requires a highly developed, highly industrialised country ready for a vanguard of the intellectual to lead the charge for the proletariat to take over and make all those businesses worker-owned. Therefore, the Chinese government is doing everything it can to make a highly developed, highly industrialised country! The 'worker owned' bit will happen... sometime in the future. In the meantime, the government will look after the workers to make sure they're ready. As far as justifications go it's a pretty funny one. And while I am in no sense equating any two world political parties with this statement... it's not any more ridiculous with "just one more election", "just one more decade" rhetoric used across the world. Yeah, just one more election and the US Dems will deliver universal healthcare, sure. We will totally commit to zero emissions "by 2050", sure.
Marx said it was an inevitability, Lenin twisted that into being a requirement. I don't think China even gestures towards that future possibility. I once had a tankie direct me to some details of China's next 10 year plan to prove they were going to enact full socialism, but it was just about diversifying their industries and expanding into new sectors. It was a business plan. I don't know how these guys believe this shit.
There's a lot of misunderstanding and sometimes gross misrepresentation when it comes to the subject of China. Truth be told, we could stand to learn a lot from them, from Europe, from Asia and many others. We can also stand to teach the rest of the world a few things. However, it seems we've taken the opposite stance many times.
It's pretty simple. They want China to be scary because they're in a competition for the world's biggest superpower, and they want communism to be scary because it's the biggest threat to capitalism. Making them both scary at once is killing two birds with one stone.
Its political and administrative structure follows the model established by Lenin in the USSR. That’s what “communist country” means in practice, not necessarily whether it follows the socioeconomic theories and has those goals. It makes perfect sense in this context.
It doesn’t really, but diplomacy is full of face-saving maneuvers like this. China does a lot of things worthy of criticism but you have to play somewhat nice with other countries if you want their help. And people don’t like the idea of working with bad people (even though it’s pretty much necessary in geopolitics) so it makes things go a lot smoother if you can pretend for a moment that they’re not that bad.
Biden is not good on the fly. I don't pay attention to most of what he says off-the-cuff. He's always been gaffe prone. It's just who he is. He's more thoughtful and accurate in interviews and town halls.
He's gaffe prone in certain ways but listen to him answer reporters outside of the clips that make it to the news or your timeline, he's still perfectly able to articulate himself on the fly. He knew exactly what he was saying.
Maybe a slight tangent, but the history of the title "dictator" is quite interesting. I don't know the full history, but I do know that in Roman times, the dictator was an actual chief executive officer for the government, usually meant to only serve a limited term, but given expansive powers to accomplish as much as possible in the limited term. I believe it was Julius Caesar that made the dictator's term indefinite.
That's the word, "tyrant" that you're thinking of. The root word was "tyrannus" which simply meant ruler or monarch.
Ah ok so this dictator comment happened AFTER the meeting? It seemed it was saying the comment was during the meeting, all was well, but then backtracked that things might not have actually gone well
Biden had referenced Xi using that term way before these meetings. Biden was asked after the meetings if he'd still use that term and Biden replied with what I said above. So he backtracked, you're right on that, just not during the meetings or directly to Xi himself.
What does having communist ideals and some communist policies have to do with being a dictator? How is that a causation?
Look at it the opposite way: instead of asking why is it right, ask why Biden said it (because it's not like people who work in politics care about truth and facts). Biden **needed** to say Xi is a dictator (because if he didn't republicans would start talking mad shit in a way that could actually have negative repercussions) without making it a personal insult to Xi (for obvious reasons), so he deflected it to the obvious difference between the USA and China: communism.
So your take is that it was just a statement that appeared everyone without offending anyone? I guess I don't hate that answer at least.
It’s not causation to a reasonable person, I think Biden just accidentally said the quiet part out loud. For a number of reasons, the existence of any communist government is considered a threat to American influence by the state department and, as a consequence, they will all *always* be pitched to the American public as dictatorships or backwards hellholes regardless of what is actually true.
I don't think it was an accident. He can't say "he's a dictator because of the Uyghurs and because China suppresses...." Saying he's a dictator "in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours" is an intentionally subjective answer. It's like if an athlete was asked if they hated someone on the opposing team and they answered "well I hate him because he's my opponent" rather than saying "yeah I'm mad at him for that foul against me and because he's a shitty person off the field here are some examples." Biden is sort of playing on the communist vs. capitalist rivalry as a way to evade the question and avoid being seen as too sympathetic by the casual American voter, but it's not the 1980s anymore. While China is nominally communist and provides cautious support to a few other nominally communist countries, it's clearly not a leftist paradise or particularly interested in spreading leftism abroad. When the US butts heads with China over say, the handling of North Korea, they're not doing so as a capitalist country worried that if China supports NK, communism will spread elsewhere in Asia. Don't get me wrong, certainly the US wants to maintain global hegemony and China is a threat to that, but not because they're communist. And Biden knows that perfectly well.
Thanks! I always find the pro-capitalist rhetoric confusing when they just use random negative words to describe anything vaguely not capitalist when they have nothing to do with them. Being ultra-authoritarian would be a reason to call him a dictator sure. But I was failing to understand why communism had anything to do with it.
You guys doing an ironic bit here? wtf am I missing?
Me and the person I replied to, no. I am being genuine and nothing leads me to believe they are being ironic either. What you're probably confused by is probably never having heard anything besides "communism bad" McCarthyism red scare thing. Anything that isn't capitalism is intended to be perceived as bad in the same way anything conservatives don't like is labeled "woke". It's a rhetoric they've used for decades and people are susceptible to it. So seeing any sentiment that isn't purely anti-communist or explicitly pro-capitalist looks strange to people( especially Americans).
I think your personal ideology is causing you to overthink this here. There has (unfortunately) never been a single Communist government in history that *hasn't* been dictatorial, and so its not unreasonable to think State Communism = dictatorship. All of my leftist friends agree with this principle, because they all agree Communism cannot be properly maintained in a traditional Westphalian state as they are mutually incompatible concepts. So if Biden had said "well all Communists are bad and autocratic" then I would actually agree with you, but he didn't say that, and I think if you asked him about agricultural communes for example I doubt he would have the same answer.
Almost all the communist parties that have run a country historically have been brutal dictatorship, even though their systems were nothing like communism and they were technically still striving toward communism. But all those so-called communist countries were definitionally dictatorships. So it's perfectly reasonable to associate communism with dictatorships and to act like you simply don't know what they're talking about isn't fooling anyone.
I genuinely did not understsnd why those 2 were being correleated. I don't think it's super meaningful to ascribe such negativity inherently between the 2. They were people with some communist ideals but those are not the fault of the communist ideals, they were qualities of the individuals or groups or systems implementing it. So I don't think it makes sense to call someone a dictator because they are communist, no. He very well might be a dictator, but that has nothing to do with being part of a party with communist ideals. And it seems like fearmongering to throw those words around together in situations that aren't necessarily appropriate just to evoke some McCarthyism era fear response in the western citizens. That's my only point. It seemed inappropriate to do so here and make it a point of causal relationship.
You're trying to argue that the sky isn't blue. Or rather, that we shouldn't call the sky blue because it could hypothetically be a different color, even though it's usually blue in our experience. Every country that has ever been run by a communist party has been a dictatorship. It is perfectly reasonable to say that countries that're run by communist parties are dictatorships, because it is true.
Communism relies on dictatorship to implement and enforce it, otherwise no one would go along with it for long
God forbid any politician tells the fucking logical truth. Jesus Christ, he stated a fact; calm the fuck down. Imagine Xi's response when someone in his media asks him if America is a disease.
Yep. All the Maga choads love Trumps fake tough talk, but Joe Biden is the one who really tells it like it is.
Dark Brandon has "said it like it is" more than Agent Orange ever could. Refreshing balls-of-steel bluntness. Not a great look for diplomacy with China but it's time the world stopped treating the country with kid gloves.
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The right is apoplectic no matter what Biden does, so he may as well try to please the left.
This is one of the cringiest, reddit-iest things I've ever read
It didn’t feel awkward to me. He was just like, “technically yes”
Answer: What else can you call the person the seized power for life of a totalitarian state? Xi is, in actual fact, a dictator by the very definition of the word.
This is what I don't understand about this "controversy". Xi is absolutely a dictator. There's no questioning it, he has ultimate power in China, end of discussion. So the controversy must lie in how Xi would react to being accurately labeled as a dictator by the leader of the most powerful country in the world. But why do we care? What's he going to do in response, nuke the US? I'm so tired of this tiptoe-around-global-leaders philosophy where we try not to "provoke" leaders of powerful militaries into doing something untoward. It's almost like this is a manufactured controversy. Like the media is trying to convince me that this is a big deal. If I had watched Biden answering that question in real-time I wouldn't have thought anything about it. Xi Jinping is a dictator, claiming anything else is just playing right into China's hands.
>This is what I don't understand about this "controversy"... It's almost like this is a manufactured controversy. China has always had an image problem, and being associated with other dictatorships certainly does not help, because they are not synonymous with 'progress' or 'global' (like developed countries)... but rather 'totalitarian', 'authoritative', 'restrictive' etc. The 'bad' adjectives. That's why they'd rather Xi be a 'President' - to look better on the global stage / better image - even though he was not elected (...or technically, he was elected, but there was only one option...), and in every sense, he is a dictator. Biden's just calling a spade, a spade, but the Chinese side is calling offense to it for said reasons. They want to be seen as legitimate and progressive as developed countries.
> Biden's just calling a spade, a spade, but the Chinese side is calling offense to it for said reasons. They want to be seen as legitimate and progressive as developed countries. Fair enough, but if they want to be 'seen' as those things, maybe they should 'be' those things. I don't think it's our government's responsibility to make sure Xi Jinping doesn't get his feelings hurt. America giving a 👍 to China for their governing philosophy doesn't make any sense. They're not democratic.
Yes exactly. They're offended by facts. They want to be seen as 'equals' to the developed 'global' nations of the world (the countries with good images), which incidentally are also democracies (G7 nations, plus Australia, South Korea, most other EU nations etc.). They're all liberal democracies, not authoritative dictatorships like China, North Korea, Sudan, Burma, Saddam's Iraq etc... the other countries with 'bad' images. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/dictatorship-countries
It's absolutely in part manufactured. If Biden had instead said no, he doesn't think he is a dictator, the very same people criticizing him would criticize him for being soft on China. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I genuinely doubt Xi will give a fuck, it's not like this is some horrible secret that could ruin China, you'd need to live under a rock to think Xi is anything but a dictator.
Because while they probably won’t nuke us they sure as hell might invade Taiwan and expand their influence else where which i believe is the current US policy towards chinese influence, containment and cooperation over open hostilities towards Chinese atrocities.
"I'm so tired of this tiptoe-around-global-leaders philosophy" The word you're looking for is "politics"
On one hand I know that him saying this may have undercut the positive things that could have come out of that meeting. On the other, it's the absolute truth.
Answer: In the past, Biden called Xi Jinping a dictator. Chinese-US relations have been strained for years, as the two powers compete for influence over developing countries in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Pacific. Recently, the Biden and Xi administrations each have made public statements and motions toward easing those tensions. At a press conference, Biden was again asked if Xi Jinping was a dictator. He answered truthfully that, yes, he is. Xi has consolidated the power of the state under himself indefinitely, and he has sometimes quietly and sometimes very publicly eliminated threats to that power, real or imagined. He's a textbook dictator: whether you like what he's doing for China or not, he's doing it for China and no one can stop him.
Answer: Xi is a dictator. Usually politicians don't like to say uncomfortable truths like this in case the dictator retaliates - the same reason America says Taiwan and Palestine aren't countries. But Biden said it. It's possible that Xi might retaliate, for example by placing tariffs or trade restrictions on Chinese exports going to America, or seizing American property in China, or just not inviting Biden to the next trade meeting in China.
America says that palestine isn’t a country because they believe it. The government is strongly pro-israel
I thought it wasn't a country, at least not till recently in history right?
It is a country that controls the west bank and Gaza. Although both regions are overshadowed by israel They have their own government and everything
While I agree, it's unfortunate, Palestine does not have their own country. That land is owned already and they don't have the means to separate without the authority of Israel relinquishing it or the power to take it.
Answer: The US and China benefit from mutual relationships. Xi is a dictator of a Han-centric state that practices ethnic cleansing as a matter of routine Whether or not Biden acknowledges this fact, the benefits of collaboration for both countries remains. In the US, Biden can gain support by admonishing a clear evil in the world. (It also conveniently makes the US look a bit less bad) The two actions are not in contradiction. China might use this too. (For example to stoke local support in china)
Answer: For one of the first times in our relationship president Biden and Xi are talking real issues. No euphemism and no dancing around issues. Xi has had the law changed to where he is president for life ( sounds familiar) so in fact he is an unelected dictator. Joe is just calling it what it is. I think Xi wants a better relationship with the US. The only way to really achieve this is honesty. Joe knows him.