MARK ALMOND: Why Joe Biden’s loose lips put the world at risk… after he calls Xi Jinping a ‘dictator’

For a moment, the world seemed a safer place after the relatively successful meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping – the leaders of the two most powerful countries in the world.

But then President Biden gave a canned answer to a loaded question from a journalist, and once again we were plunged into despair.

The leaders had spoken for four hours at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in San Francisco.

And while little progress was made on the burning issues of China’s claims on Taiwan and the country’s military build-up in the South China Sea, both sides were able to say they were back in talks for the first time since the former chairman of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited Parliament. the capital of Taipei Island in August last year, severing ties with the People’s Republic. It was something they could build on.

Biden’s press conference afterward on Wednesday should have capped months of careful diplomacy, but when asked whether Xi was a “dictator” he went off script.

“It is,” Biden said. “He is a dictator in the sense that he is a man who runs a country that is a communist country and is based on a form of government that is completely different from ours.”

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met on Wednesday for the first time in more than a year for high-stakes talks

It’s true, but why would you say that? As Napoleon’s foreign minister, Talleyrand, once advised diplomats, “If God had wanted us to tell the truth, he would not have given us so many words with which to disguise our thoughts.”

At least Xi wasn’t in the room — but Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was, and his shudder of horror said it all.

The high-wire act of superpower diplomacy was undermined in a moment of stupidity, exposing the growing and dangerous problem of an evasive head of state who approaches every problem with his mouth open.

And when he meets face-to-face with the most powerful political actors on the world stage, it could have a devastating effect on global events.

This became clear after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva in the summer of 2021, just as the West’s military adventure in Afghanistan was unraveling.

During a garrulous news conference afterward, Biden talked about how he had taken Putin to task on human rights, cyberwarfare and the integrity of Ukraine.

Yet Putin clearly got the impression that Biden was not only a big mouthed man, but also a fraud, as just eight months later the Russian leader approved the invasion of Ukraine, seemingly confident that the US would not retaliate.

He was wrong, but it is a tragedy that if Biden had projected real strength in their meeting, Putin might have thought twice about military action.

President Biden gave a canned answer to a loaded question from a journalist, and once again we were plunged into despair

Biden’s press conference afterward on Wednesday was supposed to seal months of careful diplomacy, but when asked if Xi was a “dictator” he went off script

There is a parallel with John F Kennedy when, shortly after becoming president in 1961, he met Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for talks in Vienna.

After the meeting, Khrushchev found Kennedy weak and inexperienced, which encouraged his decision to station nuclear missiles in Cuba, creating a standoff that threatened to end in nuclear annihilation.

Like Biden six decades after him, Kennedy’s subsequent resolve was underestimated by the Kremlin. But this time the American president has more than one global crisis to deal with. Biden has to balance Russia, China and now the war in the Middle East, and the signs are that it is too much for him.

Faced with these enormous simultaneous challenges, America and the West need a steady hand at the helm and a respected leader who can be trusted to remain silent and exercise discretion when necessary. We don’t need a leader who shoots from the lip.

Yes, his predecessor and hopeful for the next presidency, Donald Trump, was loud and unpredictable, but his language was more calculated than Biden’s.

He mocked Kim Jong Un as the “Rocket Man” in 2017, which was undoubtedly a childish insult, but one that balanced the North Korean leader, who is used to more diplomatic approaches. And then Trump surprised everyone when he proposed face-to-face talks.

Fortunately, Biden won’t be meeting Kim anytime soon. But we are stuck with this president until January 2025 at least.

Biden reaches for Xi’s hand at the entrance to the Filoli estate

Pictured: Delegates from both the US and China line the negotiating table

In the meantime, his team must keep him away from situations where his unfiltered comments could have disastrous consequences. The world order is on a razor’s edge and America, its chief police officer, must act boldly and confidently.

The problem is that Biden will only get worse as he gets older. It’s not that he’s unaware of the problem. In May last year he joked: ‘Every now and then I make a mistake. Like, well, a speech for once.”

And if that weren’t true, it would be funny. His actions on Wednesday were in stark contrast to the solidity of the inscrutable President Xi.

In his separate press conference, the Chinese leader was asked whether he trusted Biden.

The reporter who asked the question, ABC China correspondent Selina Wang, said Xi took out his translation earpiece, looked at her but did not respond.

It seems, Wang noted, that “Xi knows the value of silence.”