White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sidestepped questions about President Biden’s plans to confront Chinese President Xi Jinping over recent Chinese aggression towards the United States. During a Wednesday briefing at the White House, Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy referred to reports of secret Chinese police stations operating in the US, along with China’s ongoing spy activities across American airspace.
“Do we know when the President is going to talk to Xi Jinping about the various cyberattacks and other incursions?” Doocy asked. “We have said over and over again that the president intends to call President Xi. I don’t have a call to read out to you at this time,” Jean-Pierre responded, adding that the relationship between the US and China is a “bilateral relationship” and “important.”
Jean-Pierre’s comments came after news that two New York residents were arrested for running a secret Chinese government police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown. According to authorities, several more such stations may be operating across North America, including in Los Angeles, Houston, and Toronto, Canada. Reports also emerged that China had flown a surveillance aircraft across the continental US, prompting President Biden to give orders for it to be shot down off the coast of South Carolina.
While US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his planned meeting with his Chinese counterpart over the spy balloon incident, President Biden has yet to speak with Xi directly about China’s repeated breaches of US sovereignty. The leaders last spoke publicly in November 2022, and Biden had earlier remarked that he expected to speak with Xi to “get to the bottom” of China’s recent aggression.
