China aware of urgency to negotiate with North Korea, top US diplomat says
Beijing officials told Washington they have tightened border controls with North Korea, according to Susan Thornton
China has come to the realisation that it has limited time to rein in North Korea’s nuclear programme through negotiations and is open to further sanctions against Pyongyang, a senior US State Department official said on Friday.
Speaking at a news briefing in Beijing, Acting Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton said China understood that the US viewed the North Korea situation as an urgent “time-limited problem set”.
“So they know now that they don’t have, I think, as much time to try to bring the North Koreans to the table to get their calculus changed and get them to the negotiating table,” she said. “And I think that has lent some urgency to their measures.”
Pyongyang has conducted dozens of missile tests, the most recent last Sunday, and tested two nuclear bombs since the start of 2016, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. It says the programme is necessary to counter US aggression.
