Faced with the escalation of tension in Asia as a result of military maneuvers by North Korea, three of the main actors involved – the US, Japan and South Korea – have shown that they intend to use China as a possible agent of pressure to dissuade Pyongyang from a possible new test. nuclear.
The most emphatic message comes from Washington. With a meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the horizon, the American is likely to reinforce the message that if North Korea follows through with missile launches, the US presence in the region will be greater.
“That’s why China has an interest in playing a constructive role in curbing North Korea’s worst tendencies,” Jake Sullivan, a White House national security adviser, told reporters on Saturday.
Biden is in Cambodia to attend a meeting of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, an important region for Washington, which disputes with Beijing the field of influence in the Indo-Pacific. From there, she heads to Bali, Indonesia, for the G20 summit — where the meeting with Xi is due to take place.
In addition to the American, are also in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, and the President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol. The two also sent messages to Beijing.
Kishida told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that he hoped the countries would have a constructive and stable relationship, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. And she reiterated that recent North Korean ballistic missile launches, including one that flew over Japan, are an unacceptable threat to the international community.
He also called for cooperation to achieve the complete dismantling of Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction.
In a similar vein, Yoon Suk-yeol proposed a tripartite dialogue mechanism with China and Japan, which would include a summit of leaders to address issues such as security and the climate emergency. He said that if North Korea were to carry out another launch, the international community should respond “with one voice”.
International sanctions led by the US so far have failed to contain North Korean maneuvers and promote the denuclearization of the peninsula. US officials particularly accuse China and Russia of allowing Pyongyang’s missile and bomb programs by failing to advocate retaliation in international forums.
In a way, Washington is trying to reissue a measure from 2017, when the regime led by Kim Jong-un carried out a nuclear test and the UN Security Council, the organization’s highest collegiate, unanimously approved tough sanctions against the country. Asian.
Beijing and Moscow initially resisted the move, but later relented. At the time, Liu Jieyi, Beijing’s ambassador, said the resolution was not intended to negatively impact the North Korean people, but rather to denuclearize the region.
Senior US diplomat for East Asia at the time of the Obama administration, Daniel Russell told Reuters that China could, in a way, act as a kind of restraining factor.
“This could happen if Beijing feels its own security is threatened, not just by North Korea’s capabilities, but by the buildup of US and allied forces in the region,” he said. “One can imagine that at some point Kim will be held back by China’s own national security interests.”
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