China will send a special envoy to North Korea tomorrow, state media said yesterday, after US President Donald Trump concluded an Asian tour to rally support against Pyongyang’s nuclear threats.
The trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) special envoy, Song Tao (宋濤), is likely a diplomatic push by Beijing to resolve the nuclear standoff, although Xinhua news agency merely said that he would discuss last month’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 19th National Congress.
As Beijing prepared for the mission, Pyongyang maintained its war of words with Trump, with a North Korean newspaper saying the US president deserved the death penalty for insulting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Photo: Reuters / Korean Central News Agency
China’s announcement came a day after the end of Trump’s five-nation tour of Asia, during which the US leader held meetings with Xi and urged him to act fast to rein in North Korea, warning that “time is quickly running out.”
UNITED STANCE
Trump has urged the region to take a united stance against the threat posed by North Korea, which has sparked global alarm with its nuclear and missile tests in recent months.
As tensions have surged China has backed a series of UNs sanctions on Pyongyang and imposed banking restrictions on North Koreans, putting the Cold War-era allies at odds.
Song will be the first Chinese official to make an official trip to North Korea since October last year, when Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Liu Zhenmin (劉振民) visited.
Xi has never met Kim.
Washington has pressed China to intensify use of its economic leverage over North Korea to strongarm Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Song, who is head of the Chinese CCP’s international affairs department, will present to Pyongyang the “consensus” for a peaceful solution that Trump and Xi reached during their meetings, said Wang Dong (王棟), foreign policy specialist at Peking University.
“China is now actively making diplomatic efforts,” Wang said.
“The envoy’s visit is to persuade North Korea, hoping that North Korea will return to the track of peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue,” he said.
US officials want Chinese authorities to clamp down on unauthorized trade that they say is still trickling across the North Korean border.
“China can fix this problem easily and quickly, and I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard,” Trump said alongside Xi on Thursday last week.
For his part, Xi repeated his plea for the issue to be resolved through negotiations, saying China was ready to discuss a path toward “enduring peace and stability on the peninsula.”
On Sunday, Trump said Xi stated that “he is upping the sanctions against” North Korea, but he did not provide details and China has not announced any new punitive measures.
Beijing fears pressuring Kim’s regime into collapse, triggering a flood of refugees across its border and eliminating a strategic buffer separating China from the US military in South Korea.
It has condemned the North’s missile tests, but hopes to resolve the nuclear crisis through diplomatic means, pleading for a resumption of long-dormant six-nation talks.
‘DUAL-TRACK’ APPROACH
China and Russia have campaigned for a “dual-track” approach in which the US would halt its military drills in the region in return for North Korea suspending its weapons programs, but the proposal has not gained traction.
“Before Trump’s visit to China, there was a strong smell of gunpowder between the US and North Korea,” Wang said.
“The nuclear issue at a key point. If the US or North Korea make a wrong move, it will likely result in military conflict. So China is trying to do all sorts of work, first to persuade the United States, and now also North Korea,” he said.
China’s calls for restraint have not stopped the name calling.
An editorial in North Korea’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun lambasted Trump’s visit to South Korea, where he denounced Pyongyang’s “cruel dictatorship” in a speech to legislators in Seoul.
“The worst crime for which he can never be pardoned is that he dared [to] malignantly hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership,” the editorial said.
“He should know that he is just a hideous criminal sentenced to death by the Korean people,” it said.
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