G20 summit: US prez to press Xi on North Korea
The meeting between the two world leaders comes after a spate of missile tests by North Korea raised tensions in the peninsula
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden will warn Chinese leader Xi Jinping of an expanded US military presence in the region if Beijing doesn’t help rein in North Korean military provocations, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday morning shortly before Biden arrived in Cambodia, Sullivan said North Korea is a threat to the US, Japan, South Korea and to “peace and stability across the entire region”.
Biden won’t make any demand of Xi but will share his perspective, Sullivan said.
“If North Korea goes down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region,” Sullivan said. “And so the PRC has an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies; whether they choose to do so or not is of course up to them.”
Biden arrived in Cambodia on Saturday for a series of summits hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). He planned to meet with the leaders of Japan and South Korea on Sunday and ask them what they want him to tell Xi, Sullivan said, before meeting the Chinese leader on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali the following day.
Biden and Xi have discussed North Korea many times, Sullivan said, but the nation’s increased military activity has raised the stakes. North Korea has launched more than 60 ballistic missiles so far in 2022, more than double the number of any year during Kim Jong-un’s decade in power. “The operational situation is more acute in the current moment because of the pace of these missile tests, and because of the looming threat of a potential nuclear test, seventh nuclear test,” he said.
Biden also promised on Saturday that the US would work with a strategically vital coalition of southeast Asian nations, telling leaders that “we’re going to build a better future that we all want to see” in the region where US rival China is also working to expand its influence.