Donald Trump looks forward to Xi Jinping visit – Tillerson

Rex Tillerson concluded his first trip to Asia as secretary of state, sounding optimistic about the prospects for US cooperation with China on the North Korean nuclear issue.

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

It turns out that staffing an entire government with rich people you know from your golf outings will not, despite how wonderful it sounded when you were describing it to your third butler, usher in a brand new era of national greatness.

Mr Tillerson has struck a cordial tone during his meetings in Beijing, the last stop in a tour of Asia that also included visits to Japan and South Korea.

Nor did he address a query about whether Trump’s remarks on Friday on Twitter, complaining about China’s inaction on the North Korean issue, had made Tillerson’s trip to China more hard.

Xi, 2014: Ladies and gentlemen, friends, China is ready to work with the United States to make efforts in a number of priority areas and putting into effect such principles as non-confrontation, non-conflict, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation. “China has done little to help!” tweeted Trump in response.

The rumors of a fourth communique have arisen due to the Trump administration’s opacity in regard to its China policy, as well as internecine factional struggles.

Wang called their talks “candid, pragmatic and productive”, while Tillerson talked about a “constructive and results-oriented relationship”.

Although neither side brought up the subject publicly, Tillerson was expected to raise the prospect of financial penalties on Chinese companies and banks that do business with North Korea.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is welcomed by his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida at the Iikura Guesthouse in Tokyo, March 16, 2017.

In Seoul on March 17, Tillerson said that “all options are on the table” for dealing with the Kim Jong-Un regime, including an implied pre-emptive military strike. Beijing fears Kim’s fall would send waves of refugees into northeastern China and see South Korean and American forces taking up positions along its border.

Media reports indicated the test was likely to have been timed to coincide with the visit of U.S Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Beijing on Saturday, where he warned that regional tensions had reached a “dangerous level”.

“What is needed is for the two leaders to talk in a relaxed and unofficial way”, he said.

“Of course there is no guarantee for success”.

The North conducted two nuclear test explosions and 24 ballistic missile tests past year.

The tougher United States talk followed two North Korean nuclear tests past year and recent missile launches that Pyongyang described as practice for an attack on U.S. bases in Japan. The ballistic missiles landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone – an area according to worldwide law that extends 200 kilometers off a country’s coastline.

Rocket engines are easily re-purposed for use in missiles.

Speaking in Seoul on Friday, Tillerson issued the Trump administration’s starkest warning yet to North Korea, saying in Seoul that a military response would be “on the table” if Pyongyang took action to threaten South Korean and US forces.

None of this was mentioned as Mr Tillerson met President Xi in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Trump tentatively expects to host Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida next month, and still anticipates the meeting to take place “soon”, State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed later on Sunday.

The meeting would be the first in-person meeting between Trump and Xi and would come amid heightened tensions in the region, particularly the increasing North Korean nuclear threat.