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

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Q And one one more quick question again. State — yes, State Department Spokesperson Miller said that the sanctions against this will be imposed through these months, and a North Korea oil tanker sanctioned by the U.N. is currently staying in Chinese water. So, is China included in the sanctions this time? Or U.N. sanctions against Russia and sanctions against China are together?

MR. KIRBY: I — I will admit that I will owe you now yet another answer. I’ll get back to you with something more detailed.

I will only just say, to exit myself from this question gracefully, that — (laughter) — that — that we want everybody to enforce the sanctions that are against North Korea appropriately and consistently. And not everybody does. And North Korea has benefited from sanctions evasions by countries in the region and beyond the region. I’ll leave it at that.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Okay. I’m going to — we’re going to have to start wrapping it up.

Q Thank you very much, Karine. Thank you very much, John. I have a question on Russia and growing ties between China and Russia. Putin is reportedly visiting China this month, and right before this visit, just last week, we learned that Russian police raided the homes of Falun Gong practitioners in Russia — this is a group persecuted in China — and detained several of them.

Does — does the White House have any reaction to this? And then I have a follow-up one.

MR. KIRBY: I haven’t seen the reports about the detention of these individuals. If the — if they’re true, certainly, that would be concerning to us. But I’d probably refer you to the State Department to speak a little bit more about that than — than I can.

Just, again, writ — writ large, we have seen China and Russia try to go — grow closer together. We believe a big reason for that is, frankly, the United States and — and putting themselves in positions to — to either oppose our foreign policy objectives or to try to be an obstacle to them in many, many different ways.

So, it’s — it’s concerning to us.

The most specific concern that we have right now is the fact that some Chinese companies are providing microelectronics and components so that Mr. Putin can continue his defense industrial base improvements and developments and put weapons in the field that just kill innocent Ukrainians.

And, again, we’ve been — we’ve made those concerns clear directly to our Chinese counterparts and at the U.N.

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Source: The White House

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