United States President Joe Biden, in a statement on Tuesday, said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a “big mistake” by not showing up for the key diplomatic summits — COP26 climate conference and G20 — in Europe.

“I think it has been a big mistake, quite frankly, for China, links back to China not showing up”, Biden said during the press conference.

After days of negotiations at the G20 summit in Rome and the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Biden said in his closing remarks, “I am not looking for, I do not anticipate there will be a need for there to be physical conflict” while addressing China’s lack of participation.

He added that he told Xi Jinping, “We expect them to play by the rules of the road”, according to reports from ABC News.

“The rest of the world is going to look to China and say, ‘what value added are they providing?’ And they have lost an ability to influence people around the world and all the people here at COP, the same way I would argue with regard to Russia”, Biden said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with China’s Xi Jinping, were absent from their country’s delegation in Glasgow and Rome. Instead, ministers from the countries were sent as diplomats for the key summits.

Earlier during the diplomatic event, Biden said that it was “disappointing” that  Russian and Chinese leaders “basically did not show up.”

Other world leaders who were not present in Rome for the meeting were from Mexico and Japan. However, according to reports from CNN, low-level ministers were sent for the summit as diplomats.

According to reports from CNN, the Russian and Chinese world leaders have cited the growing number of COVID-19 cases as their reason for not attending the diplomatic summits in Europe, which span over several days.