Honduran President Xiomara Castro (L) chats with Chinese President Xi Jinping (C) during a welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 12, 2023 in Beijing, China. Xi is allied with Ali Khamenei, whose title is Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and who maintains that he is the “representative of the Prophet Muhammad and [Shi’ism’s] 12th Imam on Earth.” Those are some heavy-duty credentials!Then there’s Xi’s pet bulldog, Kim Jong-un, the third generation of the North Korean dynastic dictatorship.PHOTO BY WANG ZHAO/GETTY IMAGES
What’s Xi Jinping getting his knickers in a knot about?
Was it a diplomatic faux pas for President Biden to call him—at a campaign fundraiser—a “dictator”? Yes, of course. Was that description a “smear,” as Xi’s spokesman in Washington complained? Not at all.
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