Biden’s hot-mic moment at Quad: ‘China behaving aggressively… testing us all’

US President Joe Biden has been caught in a hot-mic moment, saying that he believes China is “testing” several countries across the Indo-Pacific region.

He made the comments while addressing leaders of Australia, India and Japan during the Quad summit on Saturday.

“We believe Xi Jinping is looking to focus on domestic economic challenges and minimise the turbulence in China,” Biden told leaders at the summit while reporters were leaving the venue.

Biden was heard saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping is “looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interest.” Biden added that China continues to “behave aggressively, testing us all across the region on several fronts, including on economic and technology issues”.

“At the same time, we believe intense competition requires intense diplomacy,” he said.

All four countries during the summit have been treading diplomatic efforts to insist that their grouping is about more than just providing a counterweight to China.

A senior administration official was quoted as saying by PTI, downplaying the error, “I don’t think I have much to elaborate on that. It’s consistent with what has been said before, and I don’t think it’ll be much of a surprise that our inside voice matches our outside voice,” the official said.

“I think it’s not surprising that China would have been on the agenda. It’s an Indo-Pacific convening. This is an Indo-Pacific partnership. China is a major country in the Indo-Pacific. But I think it’s also fair to say that there were a number of other topics on the agenda,” said the official.

There are ongoing territorial disputes in both South China Sea and East China Sea. China claims sovereignty over entire South China Sea and Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. The Quad nations push for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific and China alleges that the grouping aims to contain its rise.

With PTI inputs

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