U.S. seeks to assuage Asian allies, secure China’s support after summit

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaks during a news conference at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday.

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The secretary of state held talks Thursday night with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who, despite tensions over trade and China’s military expansion in the South China seas, said he and Trump enjoyed a “solid working relationship.”

As reporters looked on in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Pompeo told Xi that the Trump administration “wanted to share with you our hopes” about what might be achieved with North Korea “in the coming days and months.”

Earlier, Pompeo and Chinese Politburo member Yang Jiechi discussed steps that might ultimately lead to the “reintroduction of North Korea in the community of nations.”

As North Korea’s closest ally and major trading partner, China exercises considerable influence over Kim. China agreed to additional international sanctions against Pyongyang last year, as Trump urged, but it has been eager to lift them. Some reports say China already has begun doing so, and Trump has disapprovingly suggested as much, too.

Pompeo dismissed those reports, saying China had reassured him that it continued to support the sanctions. He also challenged a report from an official North Korea news agency that Trump had agreed to a “step by step” process that would include lifting the sanctions. China, South Korea and Japan “acknowledged that it is important that the sanctions regime that is in place today remain in place until such time as that denuclearization is in fact complete,” Pompeo said.

“There has been unanimity in that set of objectives,” he added. The three countries, together with the United States, “have made very clear that the sanctions and the economic relief that North Korea will receive will only happen after the full denuclearization, the complete denuclearization, of North Korea.”

Pompeo acknowledged areas of disagreement that China and the United States will continue to debate, including Beijing’s trade practices and its attempts to “militarize” parts of the South China Sea.