China exerting ‘productive’ pressure on North Korea over missile launches, says US official

The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said on Tuesday the Trump administration believed China was using “backchannel networking” with North Korea to try to get Kim Jong-un to stop nuclear and ballistic missile testing.

“We believe they are being productive,” she said. “We do think they’re trying to counter what is happening now.”

Haley said China knew North Korea best “and so we’re going to keep the pressure on China, but we’re going to continue to work with them in any way that they think is best”.

Haley said the United States and China were also discussing the timing of a new UN Security Council resolution that would toughen sanctions against North Korea in response to its latest ballistic missile launches. The latest on Monday was the third in three weeks.

Beijing is North Korea’s traditional ally and accounts for up to 90 per cent of the isolated nation’s external trade, giving it considerable economic leverage, but there are limits to China’s influence and its willingness to use it.

North Korea has advanced its nuclear weapons programme over Chinese objections. Notwithstanding US calls for China to turn the screw, Beijing remains reluctant to impose biting economic pressure as it fears a North Korean collapse that would lead to instability on China’s doorstep.

China’s UN ambassador, Liu Jieyi, made clear last week that Beijing’s top priority was to restart talks with North Korea following its multiple tests to try to reduce tensions rather than impose new sanctions. He stressed that all progress with Pyongyang on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula has come through dialogue.

Haley said Washington and Beijing were trying to decide the best way to approach North Korea.

“I don’t think it’s back-pedalling as much as nothing is changing North Korea’s actions,” she said. “If this is going to happen every other day, how should we respond in a way that we actually stop these things, or slow it down? I think we’re having those conversations this week and I hope that we can come up with a final solution,” Haley said.

The Security Council has imposed six rounds of increasingly tough sanctions on North Korea.

Pyongyang’s reaction has been defiance and stepped up testing to improve its nuclear arsenal and achieve its goal of being able to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the United States.

In a sign of growing US anxiety over North Korea’s weapons development, the Pentagon said on Tuesday it had shot down a mock warhead over the Pacific. It was the first test in three years of a US-based missile defence system and the first ever targeting an intercontinental-range missile such as North Korea is developing.

North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador, Kim In-ryong, said on May 19 that his government would rapidly strengthen its nuclear strike capability as long as the United States maintained its “hostile policy” toward the country.

He said that if the Trump administration wants peace on the Korean peninsula it should replace the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean war with a peace accord and halt its anti-North Korea policy, which he called “the root cause of all problems”.

The Trump administration has said there should be no talks until North Korea takes steps toward getting rid of its nuclear arsenal.