Reuters’ Steve Holland asked Biden if he is asking China to put pressure on its ally Russia amid the Ukrainian invasion.
“I’m not prepared to comment on that at the moment,” Biden told Holland before taking another question.
When asked by PTI News’ Lalit K. Jha about India’s potential role in the conflict, Biden said that the U.S. is speaking with Indian officials.
“We are in consultations with India today,” Biden said, “but we haven’t resolved that completely.”
It came after he enacted stricter sanctions against Russia and touted NATO unity across all of its members and allies. After discussing increased American sanctions against Russian banks, Biden turned his focus to international efforts.
“Between our actions and those of our allies and partners, we estimate that we’ll cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports,” Biden said. “This will strike a blow to their ability to continue to modernize their military. It’ll degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program, and hurt their ability to build ships reducing their ability to compete economically, and it will be a major hit to Putin’s long-term strategic ambitions, and we’re preparing to do more.”
He also revealed that the U.S. will take part in a worldwide summit between NATO members.
“In addition to the economic penalties we’re imposing, we’re also taking steps to defend our NATO allies, particularly in the East. Tomorrow, NATO will convene a summit,” Biden said. “We will be there, to bring together the leaders of 30 allied nations and close partners to affirm our solidarity and to map out the next steps we will take to further strengthen all aspects of our NATO alliance.”
China will not “rush into a conclusion” regarding the invasion, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said during a press conference Thursday.
“Everybody is busy now,” Hua said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was also mum in his readout of the phone conversation he had with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“China always respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries,” Wang said. “At the same time, we also see a complex and unique historical context behind the Ukraine issue, and understand Russia’s legitimate concerns on security issues.
“China maintains that Cold War mentality should be completely abandoned, and a balanced, effective and sustained European security mechanism should ultimately be formed through dialogue and negotiation.”
Update 2/24/22, 2:59 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional comments and background information.
