US-China relations: North Korea nuclear talks an opportunity for cooperation, Chinese ex-vice minister says

Denuclearisation of Korean peninsula ‘a new opportunity for China and the US to cooperate on important international issues’, former vice-foreign minister Fu Ying says

Nuclear talks have been on ice since two fruitless meetings between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un last year

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Fu Ying says she laments the fact that the decline in US-China relations has hindered their willingness to work together on key issues. Photo: AP

Published: 7:00pm, 24 Sep 2020Updated: 10:35pm, 24 Sep 2020

China and the United States should set aside their differences to help break the deadlock in the North Korea nuclear talks, a former Chinese foreign vice-minister said, while also calling for a renewal of dialogue with Pyongyang.

The comments by Fu Ying came after US President Donald Trump on Monday urged North Korea to return to the negotiations on how to achieve a “final, fully verified denuclearisation”.

Talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been on hold since a failed summit in Hanoi between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February 2019 and a brief encounter four months later at the demilitarised zone in Panmunjom.

Pyongyang has so far refused to resume working-level negotiations, citing the lack of progress in the talks, and Washington’s refusal to provide security guarantees and relief from the United Nations sanctions led by the US.

In an article published on Thursday by state-owned news website The Paper, Fu, who is now head of Tsinghua University’s centre for international security and strategy, gave a brief account of how China started mediation in 2003 at the request of then US president George W Bush and helped kick-start the now defunct six-party denuclearisation talks.

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