Welcome boost from China to global pressure on North Korea

The ‘five-starred red flag’ of the People’s Republic of China, flying over Tian’anmen Square, Beijing. (Photo by Richard Fisher/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

MANILA, Philippines — A global pressure campaign on North Korea propelled by sharp new U.N. sanctions received a welcome boost Sunday from China, the North’s economic lifeline, as Beijing called on its neighbour to halt its missile and nuclear tests.

The Trump administration cautiously embraced China’s apparent newfound co-operation, while putting it on notice that the U.S. would be watching closely to ensure it didn’t ease up on North Korea if and when the world’s attention is diverted elsewhere. But there were no signs the U.S. would acquiesce to China’s call for a quick return to negotiations.

The diplomatic wrangling sought to build on the sweeping new North Korea sanctions passed by the U.N. Security Council a day earlier — the strongest in a generation, the U.S. said.

As diplomats gathered in the Philippines for an annual regional meeting, President Donald Trump was cheering the move. He cited the “very big financial impact” of the sanctions and noted optimistically that both China and Russia had joined in the unanimous vote. On Sunday, following a late-night conversation with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump tweeted: “Just completed call with President Moon of South Korea. Very happy and impressed with 15-0 United Nations vote on North Korea sanctions.”

In characteristically understated fashion, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said of the U.N. action, “It was a good outcome.”

For the U.S., it was a long-awaited sign of progress for Trump’s strategy of trying to enlist Beijing’s help to squeeze North Korea diplomatically and economically. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, meeting with North Korea’s top diplomat during the gathering in Manila, urged the North to “maintain calm” despite the U.N. vote.

“Do not violate the U.N.’s decision or provoke international society’s goodwill by conducting missile launching or nuclear tests,” Wang said, in an unusually direct admonition.

Tillerson did not meet with North Korea’s envoy, Ri Yong Ho. In fact, on his first day in Manila, Tillerson appeared to go out of his way to avoid crossing paths with Ri.

In remarks to reporters Monday morning, Tillerson said the best signal North Korea could give that it was prepared for negotiations with the U.S. would be to halt its missile launches.

Tillerson, in his most specific outline to date of what preconditions the U.S. had for talks with Pyongyang, said stopping the launches would be the “first and strongest signal.” But he also said it was not as simple as North Korea stopping launches for a few days or weeks. He wouldn’t give a concrete timeframe but said that the U.S. would “know it when we see it.”

The U.S. has “other means of communication” open to North Korea if the country wants to express to the U.S. a desire to talk, Tillerson said, but didn’t offer specifics.

Though Beijing repeated its call for the United States and North Korea to resume talks, the U.S. said that was still premature, and rejected yet again a Chinese call for the U.S. to freeze joint military exercises with South Korea in exchange for the North halting nuclear development. Pyongyang views the military exercises as rehearsals for an invasion.

The U.S. also warned it planned to rigorously monitor China’s compliance with the new penalties. Susan Thornton, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, said Beijing had historically co-operated with sanctions after flagrant North Korean violations but then slipped back over time.

“We want to make sure China is continuing to implement fully the sanctions regime,” Thornton told reporters in Manila. “Not this kind of episodic back and forth that we’ve seen.”

Infusing the diplomatic gathering with dramatic intrigue was the presence of Ri, the odd man out at a meeting dominated by concerns about his nation’s nuclear proliferation. Indeed, the U.S. was floating a proposal to temporarily kick North Korea out of the 27-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, although other member nations are divided about that idea.

Would Tillerson interact with his North Korean counterpart, even informally, if they crossed paths in Manila? It was a question driving the hallway chatter at the gathering, but the U.S. shot down that prospect and said Tillerson had no plans to interact with Ri.

Tillerson, who was scheduled to attend a gala dinner Sunday, skipped it. Ri did not. The North Korean was spotted at the gala smiling and toasting with the other foreign ministers.

Tillerson aide R.C. Hammond said that after a productive first day, Tillerson spent several hours preparing for Day 2. Instead, the U.S. was represented at the dinner by Thornton, whose official title is acting assistant secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

Though Tillerson has emphasized the Trump administration’s willingness to sit down with North Korea for negotiations, he’s said that won’t happen until the North agrees to abandon its nuclear aspirations. Even with new U.N. sanctions in place intended to drive Pyongyang back to the table, conditions still aren’t ripe for talks, U.S. diplomats said.

But Wang, the Chinese envoy, cast Ri’s presence in Manila as a positive, enabling him to “hear the voices from other sides.” Speaking in Chinese, Wang said that Ri “also has the right to share his opinions.”

Ri hasn’t spoken publicly since arriving in the Philippines. But a commentary in the ruling party’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper said Washington had disregarded the warning the North sent with its intercontinental ballistic missile tests and was pursuing “desperate efforts” in the form of stepped-up sanctions.

“Now the U.S. mainland is on the crossroads of life and death,” the commentary warned.

The new sanctions could cut off roughly one-third of North Korea’s estimated $3 billion in annual exports, ostensibly denying the nation of funds for its weapons programs. All countries are now banned from importing North Korean coal, iron, lead and seafood products, and from letting in more North Korean labourers whose remittances help fund Kim Jong Un’s regime.

The U.S. drafted the sanctions resolution and negotiated it with China following North Korea’s unprecedented test of an ICBM in July and a follow-up test weeks later. Those tests sharply escalated U.S. fears that Pyongyang is a key step closer to mastering the technology needed to strike American soil with a nuclear-tipped missile.

Yet despite deeming North Korea a top security threat, the young Trump administration has struggled to find a strategy that differs significantly from what the U.S. has tried in the past. Aside from calling for more sanctions, Trump’s approach has centred on enlisting China — the North’s biggest trading partner — and others to lessen ties to Pyongyang.

Trump’s initial optimism about China’s willingness to help gave way to public exasperation, with Trump saying Chinese President Xi Jinping had “tried” but that it “has not worked out.” Trump’s administration began floating potential plans to punish China for its trade practices in what was widely perceived as a reaction to China’s inaction on North Korea.

But in recent days, the two powers have started to paper over some of those differences. Beijing praised Tillerson for declaring the U.S. wasn’t seeking regime change in North Korea. Trump has held off, for now, on the trade actions. And China joined the 15-0 vote in the Security Council on the new sanctions.

“Who has been carrying out the U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning North Korea? It is China,” Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, said Sunday. “Who bore the cost? It is also China.”

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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez and Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.