…
MR. KIRBY: As Secretary Blinken has said, deepening DPRK and Russian military cooperation should be of great concern to anyone interested in maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. And that includes the PRC, China, which chose to abstain in their vote today.
The international community should resolutely uphold the global non-proliferation regime and support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and independence against Russia’s brutal aggression.
…
Q Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Admiral, for doing this. I wanted to ask you quickly: Just any national security concerns about American CEOs meeting with Chinese officials this past week, including with President Xi, given China’s hacking of U.S. infrastructure, as well as the other illicit activities — stealing technology and so forth?
MR. KIRBY: Hey, Ed. I think I’ll let those CEOs talk about their discussions and what they intend to speak to with President Xi.
All I can tell you is we’ve been very clear about putting fences around certain American technology going to China because of national security concerns. You saw that at the G20. We’ve also been working with industry quite closely and consistently on making sure we share those national security concerns we have about certain technologies. As Jake Sullivan and the President have both said very clearly, we’re not trying to decouple but we are trying to de-risk some of the economic relationships we have with China. And we’ll keep moving in that vein.
Q And just a quick follow-up. Do you have any, then, warnings then for American companies doing business in China?
MR. KIRBY: Again, we’ve had a consistent, clear conversation with American companies, particularly in the tech sector, Ed, and those conversations are going to continue. Believe me, they understand what our concerns are. We’ve been very plain with them about that.
But if you’re asking me, you know, are we issuing some sort of broadside warning to these particular CEOs as they get ready to go over there, I don’t know of any such specific warning. We have simply been very, very clear over the course of now many months with American companies about the potential risks.
…
MR. KIRBY: The reason we vetoed resolutions in the past was because they called for general ceasefires with no linkage to hostage deals, no mention of getting the hostages out. It was just this, “Yeah, we call for a ceasefire.” And number two, the resolutions that we vetoed before didn’t condemn Hamas and what they did on the 7th of October. And it’s just mind-boggling to me that anybody, no matter where you sit, no matter how you vote at the U.N., could not be willing to condemn Hamas for the slaughter of 1,200 innocent Israelis. That’s just mind-boggling. And so, that’s why we vetoed those.
We put one forward last week — I think you saw that — that got vetoed by Russia and China, that did those things — linked a hostage deal to a ceasefire and condemned Hamas. Now, this last one did do the linkage, which was good, but didn’t condemn Hamas. So we abstained.
I’m not — again, I just don’t understand what’s so complicated to understand about that.
###
Source: The White House
Speaker: Admiral John Kirby, National Security Communications Advisor
Format: Press Briefing
China Policy Research 