This Article is From Aug 06, 2017

China Urges North Korea To Be 'Smart' And Drop Its Missile Tests

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, after meeting with North Korea's top diplomat during an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathering in the Philippine capital, said the situation on the Korean Peninsula is critical.

China Urges North Korea To Be 'Smart' And Drop Its Missile Tests

The United Nations voted to impose more sanctions on North Korea following their latest missile test

Highlights

  • China has told North Korea, its major ally, to stop missile launches
  • China also urged North Korea to not violate the United Nations' decisions
  • The UN Security Council has imposed tougher sanctions on North Korea
Manila: A U.S. push to further isolate North Korea appeared to be reaping some dividends Sunday as China, Pyongyang's major benefactor, urged its outcast neighbor to make a "smart decision" and stop conducting missile launches and nuclear tests.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, after meeting with North Korea's top diplomat during an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathering here in the Philippine capital, said the situation on the Korean Peninsula is critical. He also said, however, that it could be a turning point for negotiations over North Korea's nuclear proliferation, which led the U.N. Security Council to impose more sanctions on North Korea and its exports on Saturday.

"Do not violate the U.N.'s decision or provoke international society's goodwill by conducting missile launching or nuclear tests," Wang said after talks with Ri Yong Ho, North Korea's foreign minister. Wang, however, quickly added, "Of course, we would like to urge other parties like the U.S. and South Korea to stop increasing tensions."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Manila on Saturday night in what State Department officials have said will be a concerted effort to enlist other countries in the campaign to get North Korea to abandon its missile and nuclear tests. Concern has mounted that North Korea is developing its missile technology quicker than expected, after tests last month of missiles that experts said are capable of striking the U.S. mainland, perhaps as far inland as Chicago.

"Certainly we want to resolve this issue through negotiations, and this pressure campaign, the sanctions, it's all about trying to convince the North Koreans that the fast way forward is to come back to the table and talk," said Susan Thornton, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

But Tillerson also has pointedly stated several times that the United States does not seek regime change or a rapid reunification of the two Koreas, which have been in a state of suspended hostility since an armistice was declared in 1953.

On Sunday, he declared the latest U.N. sanctions a "good outcome." That prompted South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha to correct him slightly. "It was a very, very good outcome," she said.

South Korean officials told reporters after the meeting said that Kang and Tillerson had agreed to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through peaceful measures.

But the diplomatic road ahead is rocky. U.S. officials rejected Beijing's call for the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for the United States and South Korea suspending joint military exercises, which Pyongyang considers a prelude to an invasion and regime change.

"This kind of moral equivalency that's implied by the freeze for freeze, which is between the North Koreans shooting off missiles that are prohibited and our reasonably defensive exercises that we undertake in our alliance with the South Koreans to protect them from these launches, is not a reasonable kind of a trade," Thornton said.

Thornton also said that the United States would be "watchful" to ensure that China did not slip from its adherence to the new sanctions, which she characterized as the strongest in a generation.

"We want to make sure China is continuing to implement fully the sanctions regime," she said. "Not this kind of episodic back and forth that we've seen."

The United States has unsuccessfully lobbied for the 27 members of the ASEAN Regional Forum to suspend North Korea's membership. The response has been polite but noncommital.

U.S. officials have been adamant there will be no direct meetings with North Koreans in Manila, even among lower-level officials.

Tillerson met for about an hour with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. They smiled amiably and made small talk but ignored a reporter's question about how the fresh U.S. sanctions against Russia that President Donald Trump signed last week would affect their talks.

Lavrov told reporters that he believed the United States would continue a dialogue with Russia despite what both sides have described as the worst tensions since the Cold War ended.

"We felt the readiness of our U.S. colleagues to continue dialogue," Lavrov said. "I think there's no alternative to that."

The ASEAN conference also addressed other issues of regional concern.

Delegates are working to establish the framework for a code of conduct in the South China Sea that would reaffirm respect for the freedom of navigation and overflight, and outline how to arbitrate disputes. The demands that China stop expanding and reinforcing man-made islands in the sea, however, have been watered down from a year ago as more pressing demands have risen to the forefront.

The United States is particularly concerned about Islamist militants gaining a foothold in the Philippines, after being pushed out of Syria and Iraq. The Philippine military is fighting militants who claim to be affiliated with the Islamic State militant group in Marawi City in the southern part of the country.

Tillerson started the day on a somber note when he visited the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, where 17,000 American and Philippine troops who fought in the Pacific during World War II are buried.

After touring the site and walking past large stone slabs inscribed with the names of more than 36,000 men and women missing in action in the theater between 1941 and 1945, Tillerson signed a visitors' book, adding after his signature, "Let us never forget - FREEDOM."

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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