WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday that his comments calling Chinese leader Xi Jinping a "dictator" did not undermine progress in the U.S. relationship with China and that he expects to meet with Xi in future.
Biden said his blunt statements regarding China are "just not something I'm going to change very much."
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China's government earlier Thursday registered a formal protest of his remarks. At a campaign fund-raiser earlier in the week, Biden called the Chinese president a dictator, depicted him as out-of-touch during last winter's tumult over a Chinese spy balloon and dismissed China as having "real economic difficulties."
Biden was speaking at a White House news conference alongside visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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