US, China clash over North Korea sanctions

In a sign that Beijing could be reluctant to take a more hardline stance on North Korea, state news agency Xinhua said it was “unrealistic to rely merely on China to press the DPRK to abandon its nuclear program, as long as the US continues an antagonistic approach wrought from a Cold War mentality”.

Beijing is apparently upset about the talk of a possibility that the US will send a THAAD battery to Korea in a bid to counter the North’s missile and nuclear threats.

After the meeting, Wang said his country was preparing to support a new United Nations resolution against North Korea’s nuclear program.

Nonetheless, experts said that China is wary of destabilising North Korea, fearing that millions of North Korean refugees could pour across China’s borders if the regime collapsed.

As a result, Kerry added, “North Korea poses an overt threat, a declared threat, to the world and it has stated its intention to develop a thermonuclear weapon”.

China and Russian Federation are two of the five permanent veto-wielding members of the council.

“The United States will take all necessary steps to defend the American people and honor our security commitments to allies in the region”, he said.

Although Wang agreed that the U.N. Security Council must pass a new resolution in response to the nuclear test, he balked at the prospect of tightening sanctions. He said a new resolution “should not provoke new tension in the situation or destabilise the Korean Peninsula”, and fresh sanctions were not “an end to themselves”.

North Korea is isolated from much of the rest of the world, and China is its main link with the global community.

After talks on Wednesday, which went hours past schedule, Kerry said details still had not been set.

Seoul has been focused on penalizing North Korea for its fourth nuclear test on January 6 with unprecedentedly harsh sanctions, saying that Pyongyang needs to pay a corresponding price. The Chinese just don’t look at it like that. But he acknowledged that they had not agreed on the “parameters of exactly what it would do or say”.

China is willing to maintain all-round and profound consultations with all parties in a responsible way, including the U.S., Wang said, describing his talks with Kerry as “adequate, profound and conducive to mutual understanding”.

On his first trip overseas during 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt and, Iran, three key countries in the Middle East. “China will serve as an architect of peace in the Middle East, as a driver of development in the Middle East, as a promoter of industrialization in the Middle East, as a supporter of stability in the Middle East, and as a cooperative partner on public sentiment in the Middle East”, he said during his trip. Beijing has embarked upon ambitious reclamation projects in the disputed waters to bolster its territorial claims in the region, and recently concluded multiple test flights at an airstrip it constructed in the hotly contested Spratlys, where several countries including Vietnam and the Philippines have overlapping claims.

China asserts ownership over virtually the entire area, putting it at odds with regional neighbours the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Kerry also acknowledged differences of opinion.

The Global Times, an English-language Chinese newspaper, also said in an editorial that, “South Korea should avoid using the THAAD missile system as leverage against China”.

China insists any disputes should be handled bilaterally.

Secretary Kerry, who started a three-nation Asia swing in Laos and Cambodia, vowed to raise the pressure on North Korea. China, meanwhile, has promised the country major investments in infrastructure, including a high-speed rail line. But Wang reiterated Beijing’s position that “China has a right to protect its own territorial sovereignty and lawful and legitimate maritime rights and interests”.

Samantha Power, Washington’s envoy to the United Nations has said China and the USA have not yet reached an agreement on the UNSC draft resolution against Pyongyang.