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By Aila Slisco
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken's behavior while seated next to President Joe Biden during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is being questioned online.
Biden, Blinken and other members of the Biden administration met with Xi and Chinese government representatives to discuss U.S.-China relations on Wednesday at a historic estate near San Francisco, California, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is taking place this week.
Viral videos of Blinken staring at the president during the meeting were shared to X, formerly Twitter, shortly after the event. The videos do not appear to show Blinken, who remained mostly silent with a neutral expression, doing anything unusual during the meeting.
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However, several posts featuring the footage—shared by conservative news outlet The Post Millennial, Russian-state media outlet RT and the Republican National Committee's RNC Research account, among others—suggested that Blinken's behavior was out of the ordinary and indicated that he was "nervous" or uncertain of Biden's actions.
"Why is Antony Blinken looking at Biden like that?" The Post Millennial wrote while sharing a 15-second video showing Blinken seated next to Biden and looking at the president with no discernible expression.
"Blinken's face," the outlet wrote while sharing another short video, this time featuring Blinken appearing to swallow and glance in different directions as members of the Chinese delegation spoke.
"Biden: Well, mr. President, it's good to see you again. Blinken: *DOESN'T BLINK*," wrote RT while sharing a longer version of the first video, which showed the secretary blinking several times.
RT followed up its post by offering followers a poll on "Why is Blinken staring at Biden?" with the following options: "he's worried about talks," "he can't believe his eyes," "he's just admiring" or "your variant in comments."
"Look at Blinken, he's super nervous that Biden says something silly," wrote @MyLordBebo, an account described as "Anti Woke, Anti hypocrisy, Anti fake news."
"A confused Biden looks to Antony Blinken, who then instructs the press to leave so Biden and Xi Jinping can meet privately. Biden just sits there and smirks," RNC Research commented while sharing a 35-second video of the meeting seemingly wrapping up.
The video shared by RNC research does not appear to show Blinken talking to the press. Evidence for Biden's purported confusion is also nowhere to be found, with the president instead being shown smiling and laughing with Blinken.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the State Department via online contact form on Wednesday.
The meeting between Xi and Biden, which could be a step toward improving U.S.-China relations, was the first face-to-face gathering of the world leaders since a November 2022 meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Both of the leaders emphasized improving bilateral cooperation during the public portion of their meeting, with Xi saying that the planet was "big enough" for both countries to flourish.
Biden began the meeting by telling Xi that it was "good to see" him again, while recalling his history of spending "many hours" in official meetings with the Chinese president since his time serving as vice president.
Correction, 11/16/23, 5 a.m. ET: The headline on this article was updated to correctly spell Antony Blinken's first name.
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