Kim visits Beijing as US, SK halt drills
Leader expected to talk about summit
BEIJING: North Korean leader Kim Jongun arrived in Beijing yesterday, where he will likely brief Chinese President Xi Jinping on his summit with US President Donald Trump last week, as Washington and Seoul agreed to suspend a major joint military exercise.
This is Mr Kim’s third trip to China this year, coming less than a week after he met Mr Trump in Singapore for historic talks.
Following the Singapore summit, Mr Trump agree to work with Mr Kim toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, committed to provide the North’s regime with security guarantees and pledged to end “war games”, which Pyongyang and Beijing have long seen as provocative.
In an unusual move, Chinese state media announced Mr Kim’s visit and said he would stay for two days. Previously China would only confirm Mr Kim had visited after he had left the country. No other details were provided.
A Kim trip to China to discuss his summit with Mr Trump had been widely anticipated in diplomatic circles. China is North Korea’s most important diplomatic and economic backer but has been angered by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests.
Police tightened security along Beijing’s main Changan Avenue, which leads to the Great Hall of the People where Chinese leaders normally meet visiting heads of state, and also outside the Diaoyutai State Guest House, where Mr Kim stayed with his wife during his March visit to Beijing.
China has welcomed the warming of ties between Washington and Pyongyang, and offered to help.
Beijing has been particularly pleased by Mr Trump’s announcement to suspend military drills, which China has long pushed for under its “dual suspension” proposal, whereby North Korea stops weapons tests and the United States and South Korea stop military drills, so both sides can sit down for talks.
“South Korea and the United States have agreed to suspend all planning activities regarding the Freedom Guardian military drill scheduled for August,” according to a South Korean defence ministry statement.
A Pentagon statement confirmed the suspension and added that there would be a meeting between the secretaries of defence and state as well as Mr Trump’s national security adviser on the issue this week.
Last year, 17,500 American and more than 50,000 South Korean troops participated in the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills, although the exercise is mostly focused on computerised simulations rather than live field exercises that use weapons, tanks or aircraft.
The US-South Korean exercise calendar hits a high point every spring with the Foal Eagle and Max Thunder drills, which both wrapped up last month.
The decision to halt military exercises in South Korea has bewildered many current and former US defence officials, who only learned about it when Mr Trump made his remarks after the Singapore meeting.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said yesterday there would be no changes to joint drill plans between the United States and Japan, both of which also engage in regular deterrence exercises against North Korea.
“The United States is in a position to keep its commitment to its allied nations’ defence and our understanding is there is no change to the US commitment to the Japan-US alliance and the structure of American troops stationed in Japan,” Mr Suga said in a regular briefing.
The Pentagon has yet to publicly release the cost of previous joint military exercises with South Korea, a week after Mr Trump cited their “tremendously expensive” cost as a reason for halting them.
Spending data for previous military exercises in Korea and elsewhere, however, suggest that the cost of a single exercise would be in the low or perhaps tens of millions of dollars in a US military budget this year of nearly $700 billion.
In response to repeated requests for cost data, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Logan, said: “We are currently evaluating the costs of the exercises.”