Abe swipes at China, Russia over North Korea
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on China and Russia to do more to stop North Korea after the isolated regime test-fired its second intercontinental ballistic missile in a month.
Abe, speaking after a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, told reporters on Monday that they agreed more action was needed to mitigate the threat from North Korea. The comments echoed a statement over the weekend from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who called China and Russia “economic enablers” of the regime.
“We have made consistent efforts to resolve the North Korean problem in a peaceful manner, but North Korea has ignored that entirely and escalated the situation in a one-sided way,” Abe said. “The international community, starting with China and Russia, must take this obvious fact seriously and increase pressure.”
The comments add to a growing rift between the world’s major powers over how to respond to Kim Jong Un’s regime. The U.S. and its allies want China and Russia — which account for the bulk of North Korea’s trade — to cut off financial flows, while Beijing and Moscow are pushing for both sides to compromise.
The U.S. and North Korea, not China, are responsible for the increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula, so they have responsibility to “get things moving in the right direction,” Liu Jieyi, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters Monday.
China’s biggest fears related to North Korea remain a collapse of Kim’s regime that sparks a protracted refugee crisis, and a beefed-up U.S. military presence on its border.
Trump and Abe “committed to increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, and to convincing other countries to follow suit,” the White House said in a statement on Sunday.
The UN Security Council is working on a new resolution even as China works with Russia on a road map on how to resolve the crisis, Liu said. The Chinese envoy made it clear such a plan would rely on his nation’s position that dialogue should be based on North Korea suspending — but not giving up — its nuclear missile program in return for the U.S. and South Korea calling off joint military exercises.
Late Saturday Trump again linked China’s actions to the broader U.S.-China trade relationship.
“Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk.” China’s vice commerce minister Qian Keming said at a briefing on Monday the North Korea nuclear issue should be kept separate from the U.S.-China trade relationship.