Joe Biden Calls Chinese President Xi Jinping A Dictator

US President Joe Biden has reportedly called Chinese President Xi Jinping a "dictator" who got upset after the Pentagon shot down the Chinese spy balloon in February.

His remarks come a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese President Xi in Beijing.

"The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn't know it was there," Biden said at a fundraiser in California on Tuesday.

"That's a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn't know what happened. That wasn't supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course," Biden added.

In February, the US shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean as it crossed continental America after hovering over its skies from Montana to South Carolina.

However, this did not go well with China as it expressed its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the US's use of force on the airship. China's Defense Ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei said that his country "reserves the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations."

"US' overreaction seriously violated the international practice. China will resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests of relevant companies, while reserving the right to make further necessary reactions," China's state-run Global Times quoted the ministry as saying. "The Chinese side has repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US due to force majeure, which was completely accidental," Beijing had said in a statement.

Following the incident, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's postponed his first official trip to Beijing.

However, the latest comments by Biden come a day after Blinken's visit to Beijing - the first by a top US diplomat in almost five years.

Both the leaders hailed the restarting of high-level communications between the two countries as a welcome development.