“I don’t think there’s anything inevitable about the notion that there’s going to be this conflict between the United States and the West” with China, Mr. Biden added.
But China was hardly assuaged. Its government sharply denounced the G7 summit over the weekend, warning the leaders against pressing Beijing about Taiwan, economic coercion and other contentious topics.
“The Group of 7 talks in lofty tones about ‘moving toward a peaceful, stable, prosperous world,’ but what it is doing is obstructing international peace, harming regional stability, and oppressing the development of other countries,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in the statement. “The Group of 7 has ignored China’s grave concerns and insisted on manipulating topics related to China, vilifying and attacking China, and crudely meddling in China’s domestic affairs.”
China has been a key ally of Russia throughout the Ukraine war, although it has not sent lethal aid, according to American officials. In a sign that Beijing and Moscow remain close despite tensions over the war in Ukraine, China announced that a senior envoy, Chen Wenqing, the head of the Communist Party’s political and legal affairs committee, would go to Russia for meetings about security cooperation.
Russia had its own way of responding to the message of solidarity for Ukraine emerging from the G7. The Russian navy positioned two warships and two submarines in the Black Sea, seemingly hinting at a planned missile strike on Ukraine to coincide with the G7 summit, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command said on Ukrainian television.
The meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelensky was their first since the American president made a surprise trip to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in February. The two reminisced on Sunday about that visit, when they marched outside to pay tribute to fallen Ukrainians even as air raid sirens were sounding. Mr. Biden remembered following Mr. Zelensky, who appeared unruffled. “And I thought, ‘Well, if he doesn’t care about the sirens, I don’t care about the sirens.’”
Jim Tankersley, Chris Buckley, Andrew E. Kramer and Hikari Hida contributed reporting.
