Ahead of their first face-to-face meeting at the G20 conference next week, US President Joe Biden promised to push Chinese leader Xi Jinping to restrain North Korea when he arrived in Asia on Saturday.
Prior to his meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Monday in Bali, Biden was in Phnom Penh to meet with leaders of Southeast Asia.
The two countries' meeting comes after North Korea conducted a record-breaking string of missile launches, which stoked worries that the hermit nation may soon carry out its seventh nuclear test.
In Monday’s meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Biden will tell Xi that China — Pyongyang’s biggest ally — has “an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
Biden will also tell Xi that if North Korea’s missile and nuclear build-up “keeps going down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region.”
Sullivan said Biden would not make demands on China but rather give Xi “his perspective.”
This is that “North Korea represents a threat not just to the United States, not just to (South Korea) and Japan but to peace and stability across the entire region.”
Whether China wants to increase pressure on North Korea is “of course up to them,” Sullivan said.
However, with North Korea rapidly ramping up its missile capacities, “the operational situation is more acute in the current moment,” Sullivan said.
Since Biden took office as president in January 2021, the two leaders of the world's two largest economies have spoken on the phone several times. But they were unable to meet in person because of the COVID-19 outbreak and Xi's ensuing fear of traveling abroad.
Prior to his meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Monday in Bali, Biden was in Phnom Penh to meet with leaders of Southeast Asia.
The two countries' meeting comes after North Korea conducted a record-breaking string of missile launches, which stoked worries that the hermit nation may soon carry out its seventh nuclear test.
In Monday’s meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Biden will tell Xi that China — Pyongyang’s biggest ally — has “an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
Biden will also tell Xi that if North Korea’s missile and nuclear build-up “keeps going down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region.”
Sullivan said Biden would not make demands on China but rather give Xi “his perspective.”
This is that “North Korea represents a threat not just to the United States, not just to (South Korea) and Japan but to peace and stability across the entire region.”
Whether China wants to increase pressure on North Korea is “of course up to them,” Sullivan said.
However, with North Korea rapidly ramping up its missile capacities, “the operational situation is more acute in the current moment,” Sullivan said.
Since Biden took office as president in January 2021, the two leaders of the world's two largest economies have spoken on the phone several times. But they were unable to meet in person because of the COVID-19 outbreak and Xi's ensuing fear of traveling abroad.
