FM urges US to cooperate
Trade, N.Korea top Pompeo’s first official China visit
The first official visit to China by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shortly after the historic US-North Korea summit has provided a window of opportunity to improve mutual understanding and enhance cooperation to help deliver the summit’s promises, Chinese observers said on Thursday.
Pompeo made his first official visit to Beijing on Thursday after visiting South Korea in the morning, during which he briefed regional allies South Korea and Japan on the summit’s outcome between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Beijing can better understand Trump through Pompeo, who is Trump’s most trusted official, and therefore an influential White House adviser, said Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University’s Institute of International Relations in Beijing.
At a press conference after meeting Pompeo, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China will work with the US and North Korea to promote dialogue and establish a peaceful mechanism on the Korean Peninsula, Beijing-based television station reported.
The two also touched on China-US trade relations, with Wang calling for cooperation while admitting that differences still exist, said the report.
“What matters is how China and the US cooperate,” Wang said. “Let competition drive cooperation.”
“There are two options: one is cooperation, win-win for both countries; and the second is confrontation and a loselose scenario. China has made its choice for cooperation. We hope the US would do the same,” Wang said, noting that China is also prepared on all fronts.
Pompeo reached out to Beijing during his visit to enhance cooperation in properly handling Korean Peninsula issues, because Washington needs Beijing, Pyongyang’s long-standing ally, to play a supervisory role to make sure Pyongyang honors its end of the deal, said Su Xiaohui, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies.
Washington should realize Beijing’s indispensable role on the matter. And the follow-through to “complete denuclearization” cannot possibly be accomplished without China, Su told the Global Times on Thursday.
During the summit in Singapore’s resort island of Sentosa, Trump and Kim signed a joint statement and agreed to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees for North Korea, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
After arriving in Seoul, Pompeo said that the joint statement did not contain all that had been agreed to in principle with Pyongyang, and claimed that there would be more US-North Korea bilateral talks, and that the US is eyeing a “major disarmament” in the next two-and-a-half years before Trump’s first term ends.
The timetable is not part of the vaguely-written joint statement, and it appears to be Washington’s one-sided wishful thinking, Su said.
The new timetable, a much extended one compared to the previous USproposed six-month denuclearization, clearly favors Pyongyang and reflects a US compromise on the matter, according to Su.
When asked why the words “verifiable” and “irreversible” were missing from the joint statement, Pompeo said the two terms were incorporated in the word “complete,” the Guardian reported.
The US had not made any concession to their demand for much more rigorous terms in “complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament” until the final joint agreement came out, proving that Trump and Kim discussed the topics and failed to reach a consensus, Su said.
Pompeo also announced that “we’re going to get complete denuclearization and only then are we going to lift sanctions,” and that “the mistakes of the past were they were providing economic relief before complete denuclearization.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a regular press conference on Thursday that China has always insisted that sanctions are not the goal and all parties should support and coordinate with the ongoing diplomatic dialogues and efforts towards the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and push forward the political approach to address the issues.