President Joe Biden on Friday offered quick responses on the meeting with Chinese diplomats, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s live debate challenge.
Putin responded to Biden’s “killer” remarks by challenging him, “I’ve just thought of this now,” Putin told a Russian state-run TV outlet Thursday. “I want to propose to President Biden to continue our discussion, but on the condition that we do it basically live, as it’s called. Without any delays and directly in an open, direct discussion.”
When asked about the challenge, Biden said: “I’m sure we’ll talk at some point.”
Biden’s remarks come after WH Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday that “that the president already had a conversation with President Putin even as there are more world leaders that he has not yet engaged with.”
She added Biden would be visiting Georgia Friday and is “quite busy.”
Biden also said he’s “proud” of Secretary of State Tony Blinken after the top diplomat sat through an anti-American tirade from Chinese officials at a summit in Alaska.
“I’m very proud of the secretary of state,” Biden told reporters on the White House lawn after the unexpected lashing Thursday from Communist diplomats who mocked Biden’s claim to be operating from a “position of strength” to Blinken’s face on US soil.
The shocking attack on the United States from China contrasted with familiar US criticism of China, including on human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi lectured Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on what he said was US hypocrisy.
“The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang said through a translator at the summit in Anchorage.
“Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.”
Sullivan twice attempted to promote what he called the “secret sauce” of US democracy, including an ability to “look hard at its own shortcomings.”
“The other secret sauce of America is that our people are a problem-solving people, and we believe we solve problems best when we work together with allies and partners around the world,” Sullivan said.
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This is an excerpt from the New York Post.
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