China urges US, North Korea to ‘show goodwill’

BEIJING:China on Friday urged the US and North Korea to be patient and show goodwill, hours after President Donald Trump cancelled a planned summit with Kim Jong Un.

Beijing had backed the summit and was possibly taken unawares with the cancellation following heated exchanges between Washington and Pyongyang this week.

“The recent easing situation on the peninsula is hard won, the political settlement process is faced with a rare historic opportunity,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at the regular ministry briefing on Friday.

Lu noted that both countries had left the door ajar to holding talks. “We believe as the parties directly engaged on the issue, the summit of the DPRK (North Korea’s formal name) and US can play a crucial role for promoting the denuclearisation of the peninsula,” he said.

Expectedly, China’s official statements were adequately neutral about the cancellation and didn’t give any indication whether it would impact US-China ties, which have recently been strained over a looming trade dispute.

China is North Korea’s key ally and economic benefactor and is certain to have played a crucial role in the evolving ties between Washington and Pyongyang.

Kim met President Xi Jinping twice in less than 40 days as US-North Korea ties seemed to thaw.

“China actually has played the role of hidden guarantor for the North Korea-United States summit, so China will continue to promote this meeting,” Sun Xingjie, an expert on North Korea at the Jilin University, told the People’s Daily Overseas Edition, an official Communist Party of China paper.

“The renewed confrontation between the US and North Korea could threaten peace and stability on the peninsula. It would be wise for both sides to exercise a level of restraint and avoid using excessive action against one another,” nationalistic tabloid Global Times said in an editorial.

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We hope both the DPRK and the US can cherish the recent positive progress, stay patient, show goodwill, move in the same direction and continue to stay committed to promoting the denuclearisation of the (Korean) peninsula

LU KANG , Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson