Editor’s note for June 21, 2023

Dear reader:

What did China want from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to Beijing last week? Scroll down for a summary or click through for reporting and analysis from Jordyn Haime.

“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators — when they didn’t know what happened,” said U.S. president Joe Biden last night, claiming that Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 did not know the Chinese spy balloon was over the U.S. until it was reported in the media and then shot down.

In response, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Máo Níng 毛宁 called Biden’s remarks “extremely absurd and irresponsible,” and a “public political provocation,” at today’s daily presser. (It’s not clear if the absurdity was calling Xi a dictator, or saying that Xi did not know about the balloon.)

But the remarks were not included in the official readout of the press conference, and today’s top story from the official Xinhua News Agency (on both English and Chinese websites) is a relatively positive summary of Xi’s Monday meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Our Word of the Day is: Public political provocation (公开的政治挑衅 gōngkāi de zhèngzhì tiǎoxìn).