Jim Sciutto Defends Reporter’s Question after Biden Snaps, ‘This Summit Was Not About China!’

CNN’s Jim Sciutto defended a reporter’s question at Friday’s historic trilateral summit with Japan and North Korea after President Joe Biden declared, “This summit was not about China!”

Anchor Brianna Golodryga laid out the agreements reached by Biden, the prime minister of Japan, and the president of North Korea, then said, “To quote the president, this was a big deal.”

“Yeah, and the president also said, ‘This is not about China.’ He said it’s about the relationship among these three nations, but the truth is, China is very much a unifying threat for the U.S., South Korea and Japan,” said Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto.

Earlier, the president addressed a reporter’s questions, saying, “Your other two questions about China, I’ll just say this. This summit was not about China! That was not the purpose of the meeting, but it did, China obviously came up.”

“Not to say we don’t share concerns about the economic coercion or heightened tensions caused by China,” Biden said, “but this summit was really about our relationship with each other and deepening cooperation across an entire range of issues that went beyond the immediate issues we raised.”

Sciutto continued:

And when you look at each of these steps here, these annual multi-domain exercises among the three nations, the enhanced ballistic missile defense, as well as this hot line, this agreement to consult with each other about how they’re going to respond to threats, those all relate not just to North Korea — North Korean missiles, North Korean military buildup, and north Korean threats — but very much to China. China is increasing its nuclear arsenal by an order of magnitude over the coming years.

All these things are issues that those three nations agree on as a growing threat, and this president, this U.S. President, would not have been able to unite South Korea and Japan, who have a long history of difficulties between the two of them, without that unifying force really of China.

Watch the clip above via CNN.