US President Joe Biden is “keeping himself informed of what is happening, following it closely,” White House spokesman John Kirby said of the protests in China on Monday.
“The White House supports the right to demonstrate peacefully,” he said again in an exchange with the press, after demonstrations of historic proportions in China against health restrictions and in favor of more freedoms.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, a body attached to the US president, did not comment on the merits of these claims: “These protesters speak for themselves.”
Washington remains open to dialogue with Beijing
The spokesman added that “nothing (had changed) in our desire to keep communication channels open” with the Chinese authorities, shortly after the meeting between Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia.
The two leaders, during a meeting aimed at demining the relations that have become very tense between the two superpowers, had indicated their desire to relaunch discussions on certain areas in which it would be possible for them to cooperate.
“We still intend to continue these discussions,” John Kirby said.
“We have long said that everyone has the right to protest peacefully, here in the United States and around the world,” a State Department spokesperson previously said. “This includes China,” he said in a statement.
The controversial zero-Covid strategy
The United States considers vaccination, testing and treatment more effective than strict restrictions, the spokesman for US diplomacy added.
“We believe that it will be very difficult for China to contain the virus with its zero covid strategy,” he concluded. “It will be very difficult to maintain the confinements and the Covid zero.”
Chinese authorities were trying Monday to contain an anger movement of historic proportions against health restrictions and for more freedoms.
On Sunday, crowds of protesters, responding to calls on social media, took to the streets in particular in Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, catching police off guard. Due to its extension in the territory, the mobilization seems the most important since the pro-democratic rallies of 1989, harshly repressed.
Source: BFM TV
