Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and touted success. There was no real success story because nothing significant will change. Then Biden blew any goodwill with an adlib.
The High Stakes Around the Biden-Xi Meeting in California
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal commented on The High Stakes Around the Biden-Xi Meeting in California
President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping neared modest agreements on restoring military contacts and combating fentanyl trafficking during a summit aimed at steadying relations between the world’s two leading powers.
After the two leaders sat down for little more than two hours at a wooded Northern California estate on Wednesday, Biden said in a tweet that the two leaders had “made real progress.”
I failed to see the high stakes because China is not going to change policy over a likely outgoing president who does not even know what he is saying.
It did not take long to prove that idea correct. After the meeting, Biden blew whatever goodwill stemmed from the meeting by calling Xi a dictator.
Carefully Planned Summit?!
Reuters reports Biden Calls Xi a Dictator After Carefully Planned Summit
Biden held a solo news conference after four hours of talks with Xi on the outskirts of San Francisco. At the end of the news conference, he was asked whether he still held the view that Xi was a dictator, something he said in June.
“Look, he is. 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,” Biden said.
In response, China’s foreign ministry said it “strongly opposes” the remarks, without mentioning Biden by name.
“This statement is extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters on Thursday at a routine briefing.
Progress? What Progress?
With that, whatever goodwill there was over the “carefully planned summit” vanished.
Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.”
Zerohedge posted these amusing Tweets.
Watch Secretary of State Blinkin’s Reaction
An Epic Battle
On September 30, I discussed An Epic Battle: Ford to Use China’s Battery Technology, GM Wants it Blocked
In a battle between GM and Ford, $7,500 in tax credits are at stake depending on Biden’s definition of “foreign entity of concern.” The exclusion aims to reduce US reliance on Chinese batteries and materials to make them.
Private Equity Firms Trapped in China, Struggle to Sell Assets
Yesterday, I commented Private Equity Firms Trapped in China, Struggle to Sell Assets
Please take a look at the article for why it was such a silly idea to think direct investment in China was ever a good idea.
Notably check out my ending comments:
Global trade is a mess. A key reason is that everyone is starting to think like Trump. He believes there is a winner and loser in trade. And if everyone acts that way, we all lose.
Biden has already blown whatever goodwill there was from the meeting.
I suppose it could have even been worse. That’s the only scenario to make any sense of the WSJ headline regarding “high stakes“.
It’s high stakes for Biden to adlib anything at all.
Did the CCP ever had genuine “goodwill” towards America?
Yes. Why would you think otherwise? Show me your evidence. Don’t assume that everyone else in the world is a hater like you.
Maybe it was done in purpose. It’s to show the world who’s boss, that Xi has come to the US to beg, and the US can kick his butt right after. I agree though it’s not good policy, but Biden’s foreign policy has been surprisingly very aggressive. Trump is all bark no bite, but Biden bites. I’m not sure though it’s a good idea for an old dog with 400% debt to gdp to bite so many things at once.
What you meant to say is bidens foreign policy has been a disaster along with everything else and Trump was 4 years of no new wars
Yup that’s what he meant to say
Does foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning look like the Iraqi Information Minister from Desert Storm? Because he has the same job with respect to this issue.
What good will? Xi is desperate because things are not going well for him at home. The only way to separate the Chinese, Russians and other countries ruled by dictators is call a spade a spade. Xi came to this summit bc he is desperate. He is a pariah in APEC and this is the elephant in the room.
I don’t understand why Biden should be expected to lie about this. Xi is a dictator. If he doesn’t like having that pointed out, maybe he should try holding a free election. Why should he be offended by what is obvious and simple truth? Some of us in America still value democracy. It looks to me like this includes Joe Biden, but maybe not Mish Shedlock so much.
“I don’t understand why Biden should be expected to lie about this. ”
It depends if you expect to get any benefits at all from meeting with Xi.
That’s all. I was making a pragmatic observation, no more no less.
Did the Chinese announce they were cancelling the agreement to restore high level military lines of communication? Because that seems like a win, frankly. Or how about the fentanyl deal? I saw a headline today that China is already acting on that agreement domestically. These are examples of pragmatic observations. Good will is intangible and subjective.
As long as we’re being truthful, yes Xi is a dictator, and Biden is an asshole.
USA is a real dictator. It dictates the countries around the world what to do or what not to do by force, by war, by sanction, by financial incentives, by trade, etc.
That’s not what a dictator is. And let’s ask China’s neighbors how they feel about Chinese geopolitics. Funny place to encounter Chinese apologists… What’s next, Russian apologists here?
In the middle east the US is referred to as the great satan. There are tons of valid reasons for that. You should educate yourself a bit on those. Start with the US destroying 7 nations and millions of people in the last 20ish years
Yup that would do it alright
In the hierarchy of what idiot childbrains namecall others, I suppose being the “Dictator” is still better than being “Satan.”
And as if that wasn’t enough; Xi then rubs it in by being able to perform advanced, 5d chess, moves; like walking down stairs without falling; and stuff. Bloody showoff!
Wake up Roberta Youre really falling behind
….absofcknlutely ….and Jewish apologists too !
“I don’t understand why Biden should be expected to lie about this.”
My dog has a good explanation for this.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you!!
… Its OK @Sally, neither Biden nor his dog grasp this simple concept either
It is all a scripted narrative, regardless what the actual truth is. Truth is now referred to as mis/dis/mal information by those pushing a predetermined scripted narrative. I read recently that the White House had a scripted narrative to downplay myocarditis. When i was in Korea, we ran the Paul Harvey radio show, except when he had a story negatively referring to then President Park Chung Hee. On those occasional days, the soldiers didn’t get to hear his show.
Netanyahu a dictator too, given he rules over people who are not allowed to vote on whether he should be their ruler. Don’t act like dictators are all bad…
Dictators are all bad. Simple special case of government “leaders” being all bad.
The exact mechanism by which any given garbage pile happen to have become such a “leader”, is of no relevance whatsoever, though.
Xi definitely presides over a much better ran country than Biden by now. Freer, more prosperous, more sophisticated both technologically and intellectually, less of a pure basket case etc. But that’s almost certainly overwhelmingly due simply to China having started down it’s current road much later than the US, and even of Europe; effectively only since Deng.
As great as China may appear today, viewed from the world’s basket case of last resort, they’re still a sad sight compared to America 50 years post its founding. If they, like America, also fail to have proper, full on, revolutions at intervals much more regular than what America has failed to, in 200 years I’m sure they’ll be a basket case as well. I can pretty much guarantee they will, too, one day invade Afghanistan. Under some idiotic pretext just as childish as the US one. Since that’s just what has-been, basket case former empires do for their final Hail Mary. Before being carried out for good, to be replaced by their now betters.
How is Biden making a stupid or inappropriate comment even news? His reputation as a gaffe machine is not for nothing. Even in his prime, such as it was, FJB was as dumb as a box of rocks. When Biden was a kid, he was held back a year in grammar school to repeat the third grade.
I didn’t know about FJB being held back. It’s not surprising. He is a dumbass.
It’s much worse than that but yeah he sure is
The most important element to the orient is Face. If they goof up then Saving Face becomes job no. 1. If you rob them of Face, then you have a problem.
Every once in a while I save a news article that proves the corruption in our country. Especially when the comments support it too. This is one of them.
Biden blames Trump and Shi for what he is.
I mean. . . Throw a guy a softball and he has to hit it right?
Did you see Blinken’s face when this happened?
They clearly coached Biden ahead of time (all administrations do, but Biden more than most). Blinken and the white house media staffers were clear on their instructions:
And for the love of God, country and your bleeping ice cream cone machine … DO NOT anger the people who finance the US Treasury!!!!
Blinken: Got all that Mr President?
Biden: Huh?
Blinken: (rolls eyes) …. its going to be a really long day.
What if Xi took it as a compliment? After all he knows who he is. The Chinese know it also and everybody else.
Biden: You will take the mRNA shot because I ordered you to do so. You have a choice of course, but if you do not obey you will lose your job, your “privilege” to move about freely, and you will be confined to your home. Its your body, your choice; but if you don’t choose what the government tells you, we have F-16s
Trudeau: screw Canada’s laws. I have great hair. I demand total obedience. Truckers that do not comply will be arrested and their bank accounts frozen.
Xi: you will take the mRNA shot because the party told you to do so. I am the party. You have a choice, but if you do not obey you will lose your job, facial recognition cameras will alert the police if you attempt to look out the window, and you will be put into an actual prison soon.
See? Totally different. None of these guys are dictators. If you even suggest otherwise, you will be banned from social media.
This is all theater. China already owns a substantial part of U.S. and Canada and has blackmail control files on politicians, including Biden, and corporate execs.. Go to Wal-mart, Target, Amazon, hardware stores – look on the shelves. How does it compare with 30 years ago? How did that happen? Xi dressed up like Santa Clause delivering presents?
There is absolutely NO WAY that this fckn idiot is going to run for president again ! Not that it really matters , you might as well elect a chimp, your mafia Deep State is in charge anyway !
The line between their form and ours is getting very thin.
Absolutely right ! The gap is closing in other words ! Europe is going the same road ….it s only a matter of time in our western, so called democratic, societies, for ‘freedom’ to pertain to the past !
FJB didn’t blow anything, people! Idiots never disappoint.
AND, the whole Chinese delegation has been laughing at every single American sitting across from them at the “negotiating table”.
Xi is wiping the floor with EVERYBODY!
Tom, I think you may be on to something. The parade of clowns adorning the US Presidency in recent years is certainly approaching the Roman Empire with Nero and Caligula. Is one suprised that the push to have most uniformed and least educated people vote produces such outcomes?
Biden is dumber than a log.
“Xi set the stage for a norm-breaking third term when he scrapped presidential term limits in 2018, although other top party leaders’ terms remained limited to two.”
“Xi, 69, was voted in unanimously Friday by 2,952 members of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. There were no other candidates.“
Selected quotes from Xi Wins Third Term as China’s President Amid Challenges (voanews.com)
If only Biden could spout bullshit like Trump. Biden could have called it a “tremendous” meeting with a “brilliant” man who looks “like a piece of steel, strong, smart”. And for good measure, state the obvious: “There’s nobody in Hollywood who could play the role.”
Your projecting your political ideology of other nations. China will develop it’s own political system and we should be perfectly ok with that. It’s none of our business.
Your -> You’re. Dooh!
Exhaustion sets in for an 80 year-old, after several intense days of preparation, meetings and physical activity. And then at the end of this arduous process, he’s asked a question and loses (once again) the ability to articulate a typical politician’s nuanced middle of the road response.
In some ways, Biden is as Xi, and that is, as the man who fronts his party. That’s however where the comparisons stop —as only one of them is as weakly programmed and constructed …as an old Western movie set.
For better or worse, Joe has one important attribute over Xi; as Joe is very easily managed and controlled by his …ahem …staff. But even his staff and hidden handlers can’t always avoid the “whoopsie” moment.
Well, in case you weren’t aware back in 2021 when Joe Biden publicly stated the US would defend Taiwan, that’s what ended the diplomatic but mostly military relationship we had with China. The policy was always publicly opaque until ppants blew it. He is in amazingly horrible and distinctly wrong foreign policy leader.
Now, after two years of groveling and sending everyone including Henry Kissinger, the communist dictator gave the US communist dictator an opportunity to mend fences. Not happening……done. Oatmeal brain has already gotten the United States into two wars, why not make it a third?
Pelosi visiting Taiwan for a photo op didn’t help.
Don’t understand the fuss. Biden said exactly what he is supposed to say if you care about facts and logic. Sure, Trump would have called Xi a great, strong, effective leader of a HUGE country, but that doesn’t mean you can’t say the truth.
The fuss is that Biden couldn’t even wait 24 hours to put his foot in his mouth. It’s called diplomacy and prudence. You don’t spend months planning a meeting with a superpower then flush it down the toilet with one unnecessary statement.
It’s called diplomacy. Facts and logic have nothing to do with it. I think it was Winston Churchill (or Mark Twain) who said something like the point of diplomacy is to tell a person to go to hell in such a way that they’re happy about it. Biden, unfortunately, is a weak old man.
Xi may be a dictator, but he is not an idiot. He knows what Biden and the rest of the democratic world thinks about him, and expects them to say it. Only an idiot like Trump can’t say that dictators are dictators. He would probably be very puzzled by this MAGA propaganda about Biden, because it makes no sense.
I don’t understand why this is regarded as offensive, it fits the definition. I am not a Biden fan but what was he suppossed to say as an alternative. He could have temepered it by saying somethng a little less direct I suppose but I am not sure if the word dictator is actually supposed to be offensive, I just view it as a term that fits the leadership heirarchy.
Egg-zactly, did Xi stop being a dictator because he flew to Cali?
No, but it’s really poor judgment to sabotage a diplomatic meeting within hours of it finishing. Be honest, if Trump did the same thing you’d be calling for his head.
trump’s problem is praising dictators, not affirming their status.
A prepared statement would have been best, without delving into the nature of either country’s political system.
who runs a country … true
government completely different from ours … true
Acknowledges Xi’s position, acknowledges that there are differences. As Xi is apparently an intelligent man, he will hopefully not be offended by truth.
Get real, Biden made the same statement several months ago and it set back relations badly.
How about a minor tweak to Biden’s nonsense: “Xi is MORE of a Dictator than myself.” That makes Xi and China WAY worse than the “Democracy” that the USA claims that we are.
Oh, just to set the Record straight: America is a “Representative Republic.”
The only thing missing is the representation part, but who’s paying attention to that?
I was shocked, but then again, with Biden showing he has mild congnitive impairment and thus losing his social filter it shouldn’t be surprising.
Blinkens face (I don’t like him for the record) just shows what a stupid statement that was. What was the point of meeting Xi if you are going to insult after???
Again, the morons in office and in the public will not heed George Washington’s advice and continually try to put some stupid American standards on foreign countries and their leaders. No foreign entanglements applies to how people decide to run their country. If their population doesn’t like it, they will change it the way with did with the British.
I’m no fan fan of Joe Biden, but what did he say that was “extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation”?
How do the Chinese see their political system and leadership?
Clearly not as a dictatorship.
I imagine they see themselves as either as a communist or socialist form of government.
If they don’t yank Biden after that they never will. Loose lips…
Many insiders might be thinking that Kamala is not that bad after all. Time will tell. Either way, I don’t see any scenario where Biden runs for reelection.
Gawd I hope you are right
At the moment he seems determined to run, at least in his mind. Whether his handlers let him run is another story of course.
I’m sure Biden will get the nomination, so will Trump, as long as either of them have a pulse. It’s starting to be too late to change that. I think the best thing for the US would be for a third party candidate to prevent either of them getting a majority in the electoral college. True, it would be impossible for a third party candidate to win but when the election goes to the House each state gets one vote. The House is full of morons but I don’t see how they could do worse than Biden (Kamala, that’s the reality) and Trump. I think this is something that needs to get a high profile in the public eye.
He told the truth, no? What’s the big deal?
Well take a look at the three video clips I added, then answer your own question.
I did. There are too many comments now to read them all so maybe you already answered the following question. What response do you think would have been better?
Here’s a question for you: would you be so nonchalant if Trump said it? I think not.
Mish has NEVER been a Trump fan ….that shouldn t automatically make him a Brandon worshipper, , should it ?
Absolutely. What was he supposed to say? It’s a fact. Not answering the question would have been the same as saying Xi is a dictator. I don’t like Biden or Trump. Your assumption fails.
What would anybody expect from our mentally challenged so-called illegitimate leader
I agree with the first part but not the second. Let’s call it what it actually was. Trump’s presidency was such a clusterf*ck Biden got in on an anti-Trump wave. I think both Biden and Trump are terrible choices in 2024 for lots of reasons. My vote will go to someone that is less divisive and more of a centrist
Where’s Ross Perot when you need him
There are no centrists on the ballot next year
See my post above. The only way to prevent one of them (Kamala, really, Trump will probably live forever) being president is for enough people to vote for a 3rd party candidate to throw the election into the House.
You meant to say it was 2 years of brilliance and exactly what we need and then the communist democrats and deep state released the CCP bio weapon and everything fell apart as they wanted it to
Would have fallen apart without it eventually The end of the system was in 2008 or even 2001 but it’s been held together by more debt ever since This too will end badly I’m afraid