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Biden to speak with China’s Xi on Friday for first time since Ukraine invasion

The meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping comes after reports surfaced that Russia had reached out to China for military and economic assistance.Ns News Online Desk

​ Ns News Online Desk: President Biden will speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Friday — days after national security adviser Jake Sullivan confronted a top Beijing official about providing military and economic assistance to Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, the White House announced Thursday.

“This is part of our ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication between the United States and the PRC,” press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China. “The two Leaders will discuss managing the competition between our two countries as well as Russia’s war against Ukraine and other issues of mutual concern.”

The meeting between Biden and Xi comes after reports surfaced Monday that Russia had reached out to China for help as it struggles with crippling sanctions imposed by the US and its Western allies and is running out of military supplies.

Sullivan confronted Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign policy expert, during a tense, seven- hour meeting in Rome earlier this week.” The national security adviser and our delegation raised directly and very clearly our concerns about the PRC’s support to Russia in the wake of the invasion, and the implications that any such support would have for the PRC’s relationship not only with us, but for its relationships around the world — that includes our allies and partners in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said at the time.

T​he White House said the sit-down between Sullivan and Yang was part of a follow-up to a virtual meeting between Biden and Xi this past November, the last time the two leaders spoke directly.

During that sit-down, Biden later said, he confronted the Chinese leader on Beijing’s lack of transparency about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The issue was not mentioned in the official White House readout of the call, but the president insisted that other administration officials weren’t in the room when he raised the topic. The Post pressed Biden about whether he raised the origins of the pandemic or his son Hunter’s business dealings in China during a presidential news conference in January.

“The answer is, that we did — I did raise the question of transparency,” Biden answered.

“I spent a lot of time with him and he — the fact is they’re just not, they’re just not being transparent.”

President Joe Biden claims he did “raise the question” on China’s COVID-19 origin to President Xi Jinping during their summit on Nov. 15, 2021.
Biden insists he pressed China’s Xi on COVID origin — but aides weren’t in the room
The Post pressed: “Transparency on the coronavirus origins?”

“Yes,” the president said.

“And you did during the virtual summit?” The Post continued.

“Yeah,” Biden said.

“Is there a reason your press staff was unaware of that? And what did you say to the Chinese president?” The Post further pressed. “They weren’t with me the entire time,” Biden said.

“I made it clear [to Xi] that I thought that China had an obligation to be more forthcoming on exactly what the source of the virus was and where it came from,” he said. Biden never answered the question about his son.

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