Opinion | China can take little credit for North Korea breakthroughs
South Korea’s president was the driving force behind summits aimed at ending nuclear weapons crisis and Beijing’s role has been limited, writes Ankit Panda
It must be a bitter pill for China that its diplomatic relevance on the Korean peninsula continues to slide. Despite accounting for 90 per cent of North Korea’s external trade, China sits mostly on the periphery of the diplomatic breakthroughs we have seen in recent weeks.
As March nears its end, we are heading full steam into an inter-Korean summit – the third of its kind, which will take place reportedly at the Korean border village of Panmunjom instead of in Pyongyang.
The event – if it takes place – will see Kim Jong-un travel south of the military demarcation line that separates the Joint Security Area in the demilitarised zone, taking him off sovereign North Korean soil for the first time since he took power.
Beyond the inter-Korean summit, we may also be heading for a US-North Korea summit, which would be a historic first. No sitting US president has met a North Korean leader and now Donald Trump appears determined to become the first. He has accepted an invitation from Kim that was conveyed to him by the South Koreans.
Amid all this, China has had little role.
Yes, Beijing voted for successive sanctions resolutions at the United Nations Security Council last year, helping the Trump administration ramp up its so-called maximum pressure campaign, but China has not been behind any of Kim’s major decisions.