US envoy says China trying to stop N Korea tests
The US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, said yesterday the administration of US President Donald Trump believed China was using “backchannel networking” with North Korea to try to get it to stop its nuclear and missile tests.
“We believe they are being productive,” she said. “We do think they’re trying to counter what is happening now.”
Haley said China knew North Korea best “and so we’re going to keep the pressure on China, but ... continue to work with them in any way that they think is best”.
Haley said the US and China were also discussing the timing of a new UN Security Council resolution that would toughen sanctions against North Korea in response to its ballistic missile launches. The latest one on Monday was the third in three weeks.
China accounts for up to 90 per cent of the North’s external trade, giving it considerable economic leverage, but there are limits to Beijing’s influence and its willingness to use it. It fears that strong economic pressure would cause a North Korean collapse and lead to instability on China’s doorstep.
China’s UN ambassador, Liu
Jieyi, made clear last week that Beijing’s top priority was to restart talks with North Korea to try to reduce tensions rather than impose new sanctions.
Liu stressed that all progress with Pyongyang on eliminating its nuclear weapons had come through dialogue.
Haley said Washington and Beijing were trying to decide the best way to approach the North.
“I don’t think it’s back-pedalling as much as nothing is changing North Korea’s actions,” she said. “If this is going to happen every other day, how should we respond in a way that we actually stop [it], or slow it down?”
Haley said last month that Beijing was not engaging Washington on a new sanctions resolution, but she said on Tuesday that she had heard from the Chinese side, and that the discussions now were about “at what point do we do the resolution”.
The Security Council has imposed six rounds of increasingly tough sanctions on North Korea.
Pyongyang’s reaction has been defiance, with stepped up testing to improve its nuclear arsenal and achieve its goal of being able to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the United States.