US will work with China on the North, Mattis tells allies

America will keep pressing Beijing on South China Sea

SINGAPORE // US defence secretary Jim Mattis yesterday sought to reassure Asian allies that the United States could work with China to rein in North Korea without compromising its opposition to Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea.

US president Donald Trump, who often denounced China on the campaign trail, has turned to Beijing to help pressure Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme.

The move triggered concerns that the US would go easy on China’s maritime activities.

Long-standing US allies are also mortified that Mr Trump has seemed indifferent to traditional alliances, and have interpreted his withdrawal from a trans-Pacific trade deal and the Paris climate accords as signs of broader US disengagement. Gen Mattis, arguably Mr Trump’s most important statesman as the president hopes to slash the state department, tried to allay the fears.

“In the security arena, we have a deep and abiding commitment to reinforcing the rules- based international order, a product of so many nations’ efforts to create stability,” Gen Mattis said in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major defence summit for countries from the Asia- Pacific region and beyond.

Calling North Korea’s nuclear ambitions a “threat to us all”, Gen Mattis asked the international community to unite on the issue.

It was “imperative that we do our part, each of us, to fulfill our obligations and work together to support our shared goal of denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula,” he said. “The Trump administration is encouraged by China’s renewed commitment to work with the international community towards denuclearisation.”

Pyongyang on Monday testfired another rocket, the latest in a series of launches and atomic tests that have increased tensions over its quest to develop weapons capable of hitting the US – something Mr Trump said “won’t happen”.

Gen Mattis spoke directly to concerns that the US might grant concessions to China to ensure cooperation on North Korea, saying the issue was not binary and that the US would continue to pressure Beijing elsewhere.

“Artificial island construction and indisputable militarisation of facilities on features in international waters undermine regional stability,” he said in rebuking China over its “disregard for international law” and “contempt for other nations’ interests”.

On May 25, the US navy conducted a “freedom of navigation” operation in the South China Sea.