{{U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets China’s top leaders on Saturday in an effort to persuade them to exert pressure on North Korea to scale back its belligerent rhetoric and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.}}
Travelling to Beijing for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry made no secret of his desire to see China take a more activist stance toward North Korea, which in recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States.
As the North’s main trading partner, financial backer and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, China has a unique ability to use its leverage against the impoverished, isolated state, Kerry said in the South Korean capital Seoul late on Friday.
“There is no group of leaders on the face of the planet who have more capacity to make a difference in this than the Chinese, and everybody knows it, including, I believe, them,” Kerry told U.S. executives.
“They want to see us try to reach an amicable resolution to this,” he said.
“But you have to begin with a reality, and the reality is that if your policy is denuclearization – and it is theirs as it is ours as it is everybody’s except the North’s at this moment – if that’s your policy, you’ve got to put some teeth into it,” he said.
Kerry is scheduled to see the top echelon of China’s leadership on Saturday, including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat who outranks Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
In remarks before reporters at the first meeting, neither Kerry nor Wang directly referred to North Korea, though the trip had “come at a critical moment”, Wang said.
“Obviously there are enormously challenging issues in front of us and I look forward to having that conversation with you today to do exactly what you said – lift this conversation up, broaden it, set a roadmap, define for both of us what the model relationship (would) be and how two great powers, China and the United States, can work effectively to solve problems,” Kerry told Wang.
Kerry’s visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes place after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since the imposition of new U.N. sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February.
North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it said on Friday were its “treasured” guarantor of security.
{Reuters}
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