US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke for nearly two hours on a video call on Friday, a conversation the White House said “focused” on the invasion of russia to Ukraine.
“The conversation focused on the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” the US government said in a statement. “President Biden laid out the vision of the United States and our allies and partners in this crisis.”
Likewise, the US president would have expressed to his Chinese counterpart “the implications and consequences” in the event that Beijing provides “material support” to the Russian government.
EE. UU. ‘observa’
Later on Friday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, responding to questions from reporters, said “China has to take a stand for itself” on the Russian invasion.
The Administration and the State Department have warned the Beijing government of possible support for the Kremlin in the face of the pressure campaign for its aggression against Ukraine. “We continue to watch,” Psaki said.
Next week Biden begins his European tour in efforts to continue pressuring Moscow to desist from the current attacks on the main cities of Ukraine. The US president has meetings scheduled for Thursday with leaders of the European Union, NATO and the G-7, respectively, the Executive’s spokeswoman reported.
China’s position
Previously, the US Undersecretary of State, Wendy Sherman, had commented in statements to the chain MSNBC that Xi should tell Russian President Vladimir Putin to “end this war of choice, this war of carnage” in Ukraine.
“China needs to be on the right side of history. It must ensure that it does not replace, financially or otherwise, the sanctions that have been placed on Russia,” Sherman told CNN.
Xi told Biden that conflicts and confrontations like the events in Ukraine are in no one’s interest, according to Chinese state media.
State-to-state relations cannot advance to the stage of confrontation, and conflicts and confrontations are in no one’s interest, he said.
“The Ukraine crisis is something we don’t want to see,” Xi said. Chinese state media notes that the call was requested by the US side.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has commented that Biden would make it clear to Xi that China will bear responsibility if it supports Russia’s “aggression” and that Washington “will not hesitate to impose costs.” Russia says it is carrying out a special military operation in Ukraine.
Before the call, a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Friday. The USS Ralph Johnson, a US Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, followed the carrier for part of its route.
In this sense, Biden reportedly told Xi that Washington’s position on Taiwan “has not changed” and that he opposes any “unilateral change” regarding the the status quo of this territory.
* With information from Reuters.
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