President Joe Biden said he hopes to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping within the next few months and suggested China’s leaders weren’t aware of details surrounding an alleged spy balloon the U.S. shot down in February.
“China has some legitimate difficulties unrelated to the United States,” Biden told reporters on Saturday. “I think one of the things that balloon caused was not so much that it got shot down. But I don’t think that the leadership knew where it was or knew what was in it and knew what was going on.”
“I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,” he said before boarding Air Force One to Philadelphia for a speech to kick off his 2024 reelection campaign. Biden said he’s “hoping that over the next several months I’ll be meeting Xi again.”
