India has its own problems: Joe Biden's side note on dictatorships

Washington, Apr 23: US President Joe Biden spoke about things that "autocrats fear most" at a fundraising event in the United States on Friday. What stood out was the fact that he clubbed India in the sentence, which also mentioned dictatorships.

Joe Biden also spoke about China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin. On China, he recalled how Xi Jinping once complained to him about the Quad alliance working in the Indo-Pacific in a way that is "against China".

On Putin, Joe Biden said how the Russian leader got "exactly what he didn't want" as "Finland and Sweden too now want to join NATO".

"I indicated to Xi Jinping that I was going to pull together the Quad: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. He said, 'You're just doing that to affect us.' I said, 'No, it's because we're trying to put together those folks who have an opportunity to work together in the Indo-Pacific'," Biden said during a party fundraiser event at a private residence in Seattle.

"The point being that one of the things that the autocrats fear the most -- and India has its own problems; all those countries have their own problems -- is the notion that somehow we can work together in concert and contrary to what are essentially dictatorships, which a lot of countries have become, particularly not only China but Russia and many other countries...the Philippines," he said.

Joe Biden said when he got elected, Russian president Vladimir Putin thought that he would easily be able to break up NATO. "That's what part of his objective was from the very beginning. And I know I've been saying that for eight years, but it was part of his objective," he said.

"But the irony of all ironies to this...he got exactly what he didn't want. He was looking for the further Finlandisation of Europe. Instead, he got Finland and the President of Finland calling, wanting to see me, wanting to join NATO, and Sweden wanting to join NATO. His action is generating exactly the opposite of what he intended," Biden said.

"I'm not suggesting that that makes things all that easier. But the point is that we have a circumstance where the Ukrainian people are incredibly brave; they're incredibly resolved, not just the military that was trained but the people in the streets," he said.

"They are making a lie of Putin's theory that somehow because they're Slavic in background and many spoke Russian that somehow there would be a welcoming party. The exact opposite has happened," he added.