After Russia, China responds to POTUS Joe Biden's 'Putin cannot remain in power' remark

China on Monday responded to US President Joe Biden’s gaffe about Russia’s regime change after he remarked during his Poland visit that Putin “cannot remain in power,” escalating rhetoric against Moscow. Condemning the US commander in Chief’s controversial statement, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi asserted that all parties should “take responsible actions and play a constructive role on issues concerning peace and stability in Europe, and the world.” 

Biden, in a hardened tone, condemned the brutal invasion of Ukraine while delivering his major address after meeting with the United States 82nd Airborne Division at the G2 Arena in Jasionka in Rzeszów, Poland. 

“For God’s sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power,” Biden said at the end of his impassioned speech during his capstone four-day trip to Europe to discuss the humanitarian and refugee crisis on the EU borders. Biden had earlier labelled Russia’s President a “war criminal” and separately “a butcher” after he met with the Ukrainian refugees in camps on the Polish border that runs along with Ukraine. He later tweeted addressing Russia's President as "a dictator bent on rebuilding empire." 

'Unbecoming for president of the US to make such statements': Kremlin 

Responding staunchly against Biden’s unsuspecting statements against Kremlin and Putin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “it’s not up to the president of the U.S. and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia.” “Only Russians, who vote for their President, can decide that,” Peskov told Associated Press. “And of course, it is unbecoming for the president of the US to make such statements.” Kremlin spokesperson went on to describe Biden’s comment as “extremely negative,” adding that it was a verbal escalation by the United States administration. “With each such statement, and Biden now prefers to make them daily, he is narrowing the window of opportunity for our bilateral relations under the current administration,” Peskov said.

Moscow had already sent warnings to John Sullivan, the US ambassador in Moscow, about severing ties with Washington completely as Biden’s rhetorics against Kremlin were jeopardizing diplomatic relations between the two nuclear power nations. Notably, Russia had also expelled dozens of diplomats at the US Embassy declaring them “persona non grata,” in face of a barrage of crippling sanctions that battered its economy. Biden made the unforeseen remark outlining the importance of liberal democracy and the NATO military alliance that he asserted will stand more unified in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. 

As he delivered remarks inside Royal Castle one of Poland’s landmark locations, loud explosions were heard in the closest major Ukrainian city to Poland, Lviv. Biden also quoted Polish-born Pope John Paul II as he warned Putin about the fate that met the anti-communist Polish dissident and former president, Lech Walesa. “Be not afraid,” he said, using the first public address words of the first Polish Pope after his election in October of 1978. American President evoked the Soviet repression in the Central land and Eastern Europe 30 years ago citing Russia’s brutality in what he described the “unjust war.” The Soviet Union collapsed, he asserted, and Poland and Central and Eastern Europe were “free”. 

“We [Europe] emerged anew in the great battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy,” said Biden, taking indirect dig at Russia.

'Putin has the audacity..'

US President informed the Ukrainians in Poland that he has held a meeting with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister and Defense Minister. “We stand with you. Period,” asserted Biden in midst of cheering applauds. Biden compared the Russian troops' invasion of Kyiv and Mariupol and Kharkiv to wars in Hungary, 1956; Poland, 1956 then again, 1981; Czechoslovakia, 1968. Soviet tanks crushed democratic resistance but in 1989 “walls of Soviet domination — they fell.  They fell,” he said. US President labelled Putin’s “de-Nazifying” claims for invasion of Ukraine as “cynical,” “false” and a “lie.” “Putin has the audacity, like all autocrats before him, to believe that ‘might’ will make right,” challenged Biden. He dismissed Russia’s security guarantees concerns, debunking Kremlin’s view, which he said, “wants to portray NATO enlargement as an imperial project aimed at destabilizing Russia.” 

Shortly after his compelling address, White House officials downplayed Biden's remarks as they caused a global stir for suggesting a regime change in Moscow. "The President's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region. He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change," the White House official said in a statement.