China testing us all, Joe Biden tells Quad leaders in hot mic blunder

US President Joe Biden was caught on a hot mic on Saturday (local time) telling leaders of the Quad nations — India, Japan and Australia — that China was “testing them”, in remarks that underscored the threat of Beijing over territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Biden’s opening remarks were caught on the hot mic as pool reporters were leaving the venue of the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
During the meeting, Biden said that China continued 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 added.
The US President was also heard saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping is “looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interests”.
Biden’s remarks assume significance as China is involved in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the East China Sea despite an international tribunal ruling that its claims had no legal basis.
While China claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines have counterclaims.
At the summit, Biden told Quad leaders that Xi Jinping was looking to focus on domestic economic challenges and “minimise turbulence in China”.
Later, a senior Biden administration official attempted to downplay the incident.
“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 will 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,” the official added.
The vision of Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is to uphold a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. China claims that the four-member grouping is aimed at containing its rise.