Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby

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Q Thank you so much, John. I’m going to start with the trilateral summit, then I’m going to move to Rwanda.

First of all, looking ahead to the trilateral summit next week, what are some of the priorities? And we recently heard the Filipino Ambassador say that the U.S., Japan, and the Philippines are going to start joint patrols in the South China Sea very soon. Can you confirm that and give us any details?

MR. KIRBY: I believe the Pentagon will have more to say about that this afternoon. So, I don’t — I don’t want to get ahead of — of them on that. We’re always looking for opportunities to improve cooperation with our allies in the Indo-Pacific.

We’re looking forward to this trilateral summit next week. I think it’ll be very, very important. As you know, we have self-defense treaty commitments with both countries. And so, the chance to sit down with — with both his Japanese and his Filipino counterparts is something the President is very much looking forward to.

There’s an awful lot to discuss. Certainly, the tensions in the South China Sea are not going away. That was an issue that was raised in the President’s call with President Xi just a — a couple of days ago. And so, there’s — there’s an awful lot to talk about there.

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Q And then, Xi reportedly told President Biden during their summit in San Francisco that Beijing plans to reunify Taiwan with Mainland China. Did the Chinese leader bring up a similar sentiment in their call the other day? And if so, what was President Biden’s response?

MR. KIRBY: I wou- — certainly, Taiwan came up in the context of — of the call. There’s not a single discussion that we don’t have with senior leaders in the PRC where we don’t talk about Taiwan. Of course, it came up.

I — I won’t characterize President Xi’s comments. But I can tell you that — that President Biden was very, very clear that — that nothing has changed about our One China policy. We don’t support independence for Taiwan. But we also don’t want to see the status quo changed in a unilateral way and certainly not by force.

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Q And a question about yesterday’s call with President Xi. If President Biden is concerned enough about TikTok to bring it up on a call with the President of China, why is he and why is the Vice President — why are they still making videos for TikTok?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s coming out of the campaign, so I would refer you to the ca- —

Q But — but they’re —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Wait. Wait, that’s —

Q — doing the videos.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I understand. It is the campaign’s decision. I would refer you to the campaign.

We have been very clear: We are not trying to ban TikTok. We’re not trying to ban TikTok. We’re talking about a divestment. You heard that from the National Security Advisor when he has been here a couple of times at the podium speaking to TikTok and the legislation and how we’re trying to move forward. It is a — it is a platform that we really need to take seriously here. We’re talking about our national security.

And so, we’ve talked about not banning, divesting — not banning, divesting. So, I want to be very clear about that.

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Source: The White House

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