China, US in talks on meeting between presidents

The Japan NewsForeign Minister Fumio Kishida and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday agreed to further strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance to address the nuclear and missile threats posed by North Korea through its repeated provocations. Tillerson said China should focus on the North Korean threat that makes the deployment necessary.

China’s assertiveness in the East China Sea, where it has a territorial row with Japan, and the South China Sea, where it has disputes with the Philippines and several other Southeast Asian nations, will also be on the agenda during Tillerson’s visit as will trade.

But a stark difference in their future approaches was apparent when Wang reiterated the importance of diplomacy in breaking the nuclear stalemate.

Tillerson also visited the volatile Demilitarized Zone that divides the two rival Koreas on Friday, with his entourage standing on the South side just three feet away from North Korean soldiers on their side of the line.

Noting that years of trying to resolve the North’s nuclear issue have failed to produce any result, he said: “The policy of strategic patience has ended”.

“We’re exploring a new range of diplomatic, security, and economic measures”.

The administration says all options are on the table, including military defense. “I don’t believe we have ever fully achieved the maximum level of action that can be taken”, he said. China remains North Korea’s most powerful ally and dominant trading partner. Kim Jong-un, like his predecessors in North Korean leadership, is wedded to a position in which military potency is directly tied to his personal position.

Wang, meanwhile, hinted that China doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the USA on how to deal with the North.

“Conditions must change before there are any scope for talks to resume, whether they are five party or six party”, he said.

Wang said the two countries were in “close communication” on arranging the meeting, but gave no details.

“We can either let the situation aggravate and lead to conflict or go back to the right track of negotiations”, Wang said.

The top US envoy on North Korea was in China Saturday on his weeklong trip to Asia to discuss cooperation in reining in a provocative Pyongyang, a diplomatic source here said.

Beijing has curbed travel to South Korea and is actively targeting its companies that operate on mainland China with onerous restrictions because of the missile system.

Experts expect the differing approaches between the two superpowers to continue for the time being despite their pronounced common awareness of the North’s military threats.

For now, it’s clear that the Trump administration, true to form, plans to put its emphasis on tough talk over diplomatic niceties.

Tillerson said Saturday that the US wanted positive ties based on “non-confrontation, no conflict and mutual respect”. The timing is hardly auspicious.

Tillerson’s trip is also expected to highlight the Trump administration’s lack of concern with human rights overseas, formerly a key element of USA policy toward China and a major irritant for Beijing.

Tillerson’s tour comes after a missile launch last week that Pyongyang described as a drill for an attack on U.S. bases in Japan.

“We share a common view and a sense that tensions on the rise on the peninsula are quite high right now and that things have reached a rather risky level, and we have committed ourselves to doing everything we can to prevent any type of conflict from breaking out”, Tillerson said.

North Korea has the ambition to become a nuclear power, saying it needs to be able to defend itself, and conducted its first underground atomic test in 2006.