Barack Obama responds to Biden calling China’s Xi a dictator: ‘It’s complicated’
Julia Johnson
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Former President Barack Obama responded to his former vice president’s latest remark on Chinese President Xi Jinping in a new interview, explaining that diplomacy is “complicated.”
While President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Beijing, China, and making “progress” in meetings with Xi, Biden was referring to the Chinese leader as a “dictator” at a Tuesday fundraiser.
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The comment was labeled as “a blatant political provocation” by Spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry Mao Ning.
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction and opposition. … The U.S. remarks are extremely absurd and irresponsible,” she added.
Obama empathized with Biden, telling CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, “Look, it’s complicated. The president of the United States has a lot of equities.”
“When I was president, I would deal with figures, in some cases who were allies who — if you pressed me in private, you know, ‘Do they run their governments and their political parties in ways that I would say are ideally democratic?’ I’d have to say no,” he explained.
The former president wouldn’t name any names, however.
“But you had to do business with them because they’re important for national security reasons. There are a range of economic interests,” Obama added.
He was also prompted to respond to former President Donald Trump’s recent federal indictment and how it looks on the world stage.
“It is less than ideal,” he admitted. “But the fact that we have a former president who is having to answer to charges brought by prosecutors does uphold the basic notion that nobody is above the law, and the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process.”
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Obama added that he is more concerned by a renewed “strand of anti-democratic sentiment” that is occurring in the United States, “whether it is through the gerrymandering of districts, whether it’s, you know, trying to silence critics through changes in legislative process, whether it’s attempts to intimidate the press.”
He further called it “less tolerance for ideas that don’t suit us” and said it became worse when he left office.