United States President Joe Biden, on Tuesday, labelled his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a dictator while talking about the Chinese spy balloon shot down from U.S. skies in February.

Mr Biden made the comments at a political fundraising event in California a day after the United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken held talks with the Chinese president.

“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it, was he didn’t know it was there,” Mr Biden said at the event. 

“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened,” he added. 

The said spy balloons were drifting across continental U.S. before they were shot down by an American military aircraft.

China claimed the balloons were monitoring weather, while the United States believed the balloons were part of a sophisticated Chinese intelligence collection programme.

The incident increased the tension between both countries forcing the United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, to postpone his planned visit to China that February.

Responding to Mr Biden’s comment, the Chinese state slammed it as an “open political provocation”.

“The relevant remarks by the U.S. side are extremely absurd and irresponsible, they seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocol, and China’s political dignity,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a briefing.

“China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this,” she added.

Meanwhile, Anthony Blinken’s visit to China is the first by any U.S. Secretary of State in five years, reopening high-level communication between both superpowers.

Mr Xi indicated that some progress has been made following the visit of Mr Blinken who also admitted that both sides are open to more talks. 

Mr Blinken visited China to ease tensions between both countries and restore meaningful diplomatic communication.