Chinese Paper to Biden: ‘Straighten Out’ Your Facts

The U.S. Vice President gets some tough counseling from the state-owned press on the eve of his visit

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Lintao Zhang / Pool / Reuters

Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden listen to their national anthems in Beijing on Dec. 4, 2013

A Chinese state-run paper has warned U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to “straighten out” his facts before a scheduled visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday.

An editorial in the English-language China Daily offered Biden some corrections to what it called “erroneous and one-sided remarks” on China’s air-defense zone over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

“China is just responding to Japanese provocations,” the editorial thundered, adding that Japanese patrols in the area constituted a policy of “dangerous brinkmanship.”

If Biden failed to recognize the causality of the conflict began with Japan, theĀ China Daily warned, “he should not expect any substantial headway” in his state visit on Wednesday.

Tough words, but not nearly as tough as the tongue-lashing that greeted British Prime Minister David Cameron during his visit to China on Tuesday.

“Britain is no longer any kind of ‘big country,'” scoffed the Global Times, “but merely a country of old Europe suitable for tourism and overseas study, with a few decent football teams.” Ouch.

[Reuters]