Japan, South Korea and the US yesterday ratcheted up pressure on China to support the “strongest possible” punishment against North Korea, following Pyongyang’s nuclear test earlier this month.
Japan’s Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their South Korean counterpart Lim Sung-Nam held a one-day meeting at a Tokyo guesthouse, where they called on Beijing to support a strong UN Security Council resolution targeting Pyongyang.
“We strongly hope that China, as its neighbour and the most influential country on North Korea, will fully cooperate with the international community to adopt a strong resolution,” Saiki told a joint news conference.
Saiki said the three countries are aiming to help adopt a UN resolution with the “strongest possible contents at the earliest timing”.
China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is North Korea’s economic benefactor, but traditional ties have become strained as Beijing’s patience has worn thin with Pyongyang’s behaviour and unwillingness to rein in its nuclear weapons ambitions.
But China’s leverage over Pyongyang is mitigated, analysts say, by its overriding fear of a North Korean collapse and the prospect of a reunified, US-allied Korea directly on its border.
“It’s our expectation along with our colleagues... that China will demonstrate a real leadership at the Security Council with us in assuring that there are significant consequences for North Korea’s actions,” Blinken said.
“The bottom-line is that the failure to take significant measures now almost guarantees that North Korea will continue to repeat this exercise of testing nuclear
weapons,” he added.