U.S. President, Joe Biden has warned his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping to ‘be careful’ after the Chinese President met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin because Beijing is heavily reliant on Western investment.
‘This is not a threat. This is an observation,’ Biden told CNN in an interview aired Sunday, July 9.
‘Since Russia went into Ukraine, 600 American corporations have pulled out of Russia. And you have told me that your economy depends on investment from Europe and the United States. Be careful,’ he added.
Putin and Xi held two days of talks in March with warm words of friendship between China and Russia and joint criticism of the West, but made no agreement of a diplomatic breakthrough over Ukraine.
The pair also participated in a virtual summit earlier this week.
Tensions and pessimism in the U.S.-China relationship have heightened in recent years over national security issues such as Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine, growing U.S. export bans on advanced technologies and China’s state-led industrial policies.
Xi’s closeness with the Russian president has been a repeated source of friction between east-west relations, with the Chinese premier once calling Putin his ‘best, most intimate friend.’
‘No matter what fluctuations there are in the international situation, China and Russia have always firmly taken the development of relations as a priority,’ he added.
Xi has stuck to those words, even after Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. Less than three weeks before launching the ‘special military operation’, Putin visited Beijing and signed what China once referred to as a ‘no limits’ partnership.
