Global Courant 2023-04-15 11:29:23
PARIS — China’s ambassador to the Korean Peninsula on Friday accused the US of “using” regional tensions to bolster an anti-Beijing alliance, following weeks of mounting rhetoric and missile tests by Pyongyang.
“We are concerned about the US’s intention to use issues on the Korean peninsula as a tool to contain China,” Special Representative Liu Xiaoming told AFP in Paris after a tour of European capitals.
“It’s part of their Indo-Pacific strategy… to pool allies, to strengthen their alliance with (South Korea) and Japan,” he added.
Tensions have risen on the Korean peninsula in recent weeks, with the North conducting a series of missile tests while the South and its US allies have held large-scale military exercises.
China’s ally Pyongyang said Friday it had successfully tested a solid-fuel ballistic missile, a technology that offers a much less predictable nuclear launch capability.
In September 2022, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that North Korea’s status as a nuclear power was now “irreversible”.
“People are focusing on the DPRK’s launches and nuclear tests, but they are ignoring the reason why they are doing this, the lack of a mechanism, a security structure” to ensure peace on the peninsula, said China’s envoy Liu.
DPRK, or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is the official name of North Korea.
For their part, the US and Seoul point to Mr Kim’s order for his military earlier this year to step up preparations for a ‘real war’ as justification for their own exercises.
China is pushing for a “two-pronged policy” to end Pyongyang’s nuclear power, saying world powers must offer relief from UN Security Council sanctions in exchange for concrete disarmament measures.
Mr. Liu complained that North Korean gestures during the Trump administration had not been reciprocated with such action by Washington.
“The message sent to the DPRK is still pressure, sanctions, confrontation, so that made dialogue impossible,” he said, casting doubt on the “seriousness” of the US commitment to denuclearization.
