President Donald Trump has been counting on China to use its economic leverage with Kim Jong Un's totalitarian government as American concern grows over North Korea's acceleration toward having a nuclear-tipped missile that can strike the US mainland.
Speaking alongside defence secretary Jim Mattis after meetings with Chinese counterparts in Washington on Wednesday, secretary of state Rex Tillerson said China must "exert much greater economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime if they want to prevent further escalation in the region".
"We have a great relationship with China and I really like President Xi", Trump said in a speech at an Iowa community college.
"It's unlikely that Washington and Seoul will let Warmbier's death entirely derail their efforts at talks because North Korea's nuclear weapons program is such a serious and immediate threat", said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.
A United States missionary who spent two years in a North Korean jail said Wednesday he had never imagined that a valuable American prisoner like student Otto Warmbier could die after being taken into Pyongyang's custody.
"The engagement that I am talking about is actually very similar to the engagement that President Trump is talking about", Moon said in his interview with Washington Post. "He's signaling to others that he understands this isn't working, and he's trying to defend himself, or justify himself, by saying that at least they tried as opposed to others who didn't even try".
The discussions between the USA and China gained new urgency with the 19 June death of Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American college student who had been arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour after allegedly trying to steal a propaganda banner during a trip to North Korea in 2016.
North Korea hasn't conducted a nuclear test explosion as feared earlier this year - a possible outcome of Chinese pressure - but it has kept up its rapid pace of missile launches, drawing another U.N. Security Council resolution this month and additional sanctions. That conclusion could be seen as a warning of unilateral U.S. action to follow.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation fighter jets buzz plane carrying Russia's defense minister
Shoigu was on his way to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which is between Moscow and Poland. In a statement, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said it had acted appropriately.
Tillerson called for increased efforts to curtail the North's illicit revenue streams of revenue that allegedly help fund its nuclear weapon and missile programs.
North Korea topped the agenda at the newly established Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, which paired Tillerson and Mattis with Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi and General Fang Fenghui, chief of joint staff of the People's Liberation Army. "If they are unable to do so, the United States, with its allies, will!" he tweeted in April.
China provides most of North Korea's food and fuel imports.
Mattis said China "continues to work these issues". "And the two of us also share the common goals of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, establishing a peace regime on the Korean peninsula, and building peace and security in Northeast Asia", Moon said. Washington has considered further "secondary sanctions" against Chinese banks and other firms doing business with North Korea.
It is also a way of signaling Europe's biggest card if it gets truly fed up with the United States: it could always tilt toward China, selling arms and tech to a country many in the USA believe is the greatest long term threat to America's global position.
The U.S. has more than 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea and around 50,000 American military personnel in Japan.
If Washington imposes sanctions on Chinese enterprises, it would lead to "grave friction" between the two countries, said the paper, which does not represent Chinese government policy.
Comments