US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday urged Chinese officials to apply greater diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to force it to rein in its nuclear weapons program.
Tillerson’s remarks came after he and US Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with the Chinese visitors at the US Department of State, where the former general said he saw scope for a better defense relationship.
The extent to which Beijing can influence Pyongyang is key in trying to defuse the North Korean crisis, and Tillerson’s remarks came the day after US President Donald Trump appeared to suggest Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had come up short in efforts to lean on North Korean leder Kim Jong-un’s regime.
Photo: EPA
Calling North Korea the “top security threat” to the US, Tillerson said China has a “diplomatic responsibility to exert much greater economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime if they want to prevent further escalation.”
For their part, the Chinese envoys voiced their opposition to Washington’s deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile defense system in South Korea and demanded its withdrawal, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Trump, who frequently denounced China on the campaign trail, has turned to Beijing to help pressure its ally North Korea, prompting concern among Asian partners that the US might go easy on disputes in the South China Sea, where Taiwan also has claims.
However, on Tuesday, Trump sent a tweet suggesting Xi’s efforts had not borne fruit — a message he reiterated before supporters in Iowa.
“I do like President Xi,” he told the crowd on Wednesday evening. “I wish we would have a little more help with respect to North Korea, from China. That doesn’t seem to be working.”
Tillerson said the US and Chinese officials had agreed that companies from both nations should not do business with any UN-designated North Korean entities.
Trump has made halting the North Korean nuclear threat his No. 1 foreign policy priority.
On Wednesday, the US president took the formal step of extending for another year a national emergency with respect to North Korea that was first decreed in 2008 under then-US president George W. Bush.
In a letter notifying the US Congress of the move, Trump wrote that the “existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula” together with the “provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions” of the Pyongyang regime “continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
Last month, Beijing and Washington signed a limited deal to open new markets for each other’s exports, and a long-standing friend of the Chinese leadership, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, was confirmed as US ambassador.
However, tensions remain — particularly over China’s building of artificial islands in the South China Sea.
“Secretary Mattis and I were clear that the US position remains unchanged,” Tillerson said.
The Chinese side defended Beijing’s “right to take measures to safeguard its territorial sovereignty” and said Washington should respect its security interests.
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS