United States Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday called for Chinese support in pushing North Korea towards denuclearisation, even as he urged Beijing to take steps to address recent tensions over maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas.
Mr. Kerry appeared to face some resistance in both those endeavours, with Chinese officials on Friday justifying strongly both their engagement with North Korea and their handling of recent territorial disputes.
He told reporters here that China, at the same time, “could not have more forcefully reiterated its commitment” to the goal of pushing the reclusive North to take “meaningful, concrete and irreversible steps toward verifiable denuclearisation.”
“I encouraged the Chinese to use every tool at their disposal, all of the means of persuasion that they have, building on the depths of their long and historic and cultural and common history [with North Korea],” he was quoted as saying by agency reports.
“But they made it very clear that if the North doesn’t comply and come to the table and be serious about talks... they are prepared to take additional steps in order to make sure that their policy is implemented.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying defended China’s engagement with the North, rejecting the suggestion that Beijing needed to do more to push the country to return to stalled negotiations over its nuclear programme.
On China’s disputes with a number of countries over the South China Sea, Mr. Kerry said he cautioned China against setting up an Air Defence Identification Zone over the region. China recently angered Japan, by setting up an ADIZ over the East China Sea, but made clear it had no plans to set up another ADIZ.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday was quoted as telling Mr. Kerry by Reuters that China “urged the United States not to take sides and said China had an unshakable resolve to protect its sovereignty.”