Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has told North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that Beijing was willing to work with Pyongyang for world peace, North Korean state media said yesterday.
The message from Xi came days after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in one of its most powerful tests yet, declaring it would meet perceived US nuclear threats with nukes of its own.
North Korea has over the past few weeks conducted a record-breaking blitz of missile launches, and fears have grown that it is building up to a seventh nuclear test, its first since 2017.
Photo: EPA-EFE
In his message to Kim, Xi said Beijing was ready to work with North Korea for “peace, stability, development and prosperity of the region and the world,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
Xi said he was willing to collaborate with Pyongyang as “changes in the world, times and history are taking place in unprecedented ways,” KCNA said, quoting from the message it said Kim received in response to congratulations he sent to Beijing after a Chinese Communist Party congress last month handed Xi a third term.
Days before North Korea’s ICBM launch, Xi met on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, with US President Joe Biden, who voiced confidence that Beijing does not want to see a further escalation by Pyongyang.
Washington has said it wants China, Pyongyang’s most important ally and economic benefactor, to use its influence to help rein in North Korea.
The missile launched on Friday last week appeared to be Pyongyang’s newest ICBM with the potential range to hit the US mainland.
The UN Security Council convened an open meeting over the launch, with the UU, the UK, France and India among 14 nations to “strongly condemn” Pyongyang’s actions.
However, a Western diplomat told Agence France-Presse that China and Russia had chosen not to put their names to Monday’s statement.
Earlier this month, the US accused Beijing and Moscow of protecting Pyongyang from further punishment.
In May, China and Russia vetoed a US-led effort to tighten sanctions on North Korea in response to earlier launches.
Pyongyang is already under multiple sets of international sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and China accounts for more than 90 percent of the impoverished country’s bilateral trade.
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