US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Beijing on mission to pressure China on North Korea’s nuclear tests
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Beijing on Tuesday night on his mission to press China to address North Korea’s nuclear testing programme.
Kerry’s trip to Beijing came after he visited Laos and Cambodia, where he said the military build-up in the South China Sea should be avoided, but failed to secure the two nations' commitment to take a more robust stance against China’s territorial claims over the disputed waters.
Kerry will meet President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
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Kerry’s priority was to get Beijing to step up pressure on Pyongyang as world powers discussed a new set of international sanctions in response to North Korea’s nuclear test this month, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday quoted a senior State Department official travelling with Kerry as saying.
In a phone conversation with Wang this month, Kerry said the nuclear test showed that Beijing’s approach towards Pyongyang had not worked.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday it was “irresponsible” for the United States to urge Bejing to do more to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
Tong Zhao, an associate with Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Programme at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy, said Kerry would certainly press China to impose economic sanctions against North Korea, for instance, by stopping the export of fuel and food to Pyongyang and ending the reclusive state’s imports of minerals.
A nuclear-armed North Korea may play into China’s strategic interests
Despite significant pressure on Beijing, Zhao did not think it would agree to the such measures as part of a new UN Security Council resolution. For one, Beijing did not believe that tougher sanctions would work. Second, Beijing risked damaging bilateral ties with Pyongyang and gaining a new enemy if it cut off the country’s economic lifeline, he said.
“China has kept telling the Americans that imposing military pressure on North Korea would only increase its threat perception and reinforce its commitment to nuclear capability,” Zhao said.
Benjamin Herscovitch, a research manager at Beijing-based consultancy China Policy, said Kerry’s effort was unlikely to persuade China to change its North Korea policy.
While North Korea’s nuclear weapons tests were strategically damaging for China, the fact that the programme was helping to safeguard Kim Jong-un’s regime might actually be a net strategic benefit for China, he said.
READ MORE : Has North Korea become more of a liability than an asset to China?
“If North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme chastens South Korean moves to reunify the Koreas and dissuades the US from seeking regime change in Pyongyang, a nuclear-armed North Korea may play into China’s strategic interests,” Herscovitch said.
“In short, the stability of the status quo may be preferable for China than the instability of North Korean denuclearisation.”
Jingdong Yuan, of the University of Sydney’s Centre for International Security Studies, said that even so, Beijing might be open to discussion on the proposed new sanctions, such as more stringent inspections of cargo through Chinese ports with regard to a list of sanctioned items.
Analysts said Kerry would also bring up Taiwan in light of Tsai Ing-wen’s win in the island’s presidential election on January 16.
Additional reporting by Reuters
