US secretary of state will try to find common ground on trade and other disputes in Beijing, and North Korea will also be on agenda, analysts say
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Beijing next week will be a chance to de-escalate tensions between the two sides that have spilled over from trade to security, and North Korea will also be a priority, according to analysts.
Pompeo will go to Beijing on Monday after he travels to Tokyo, Pyongyang and Seoul. The Beijing trip was announced as relations deteriorate between the US and China, with the countries locked in a tit-for-tat trade war and amid other disputes including military activity in the South China Sea.
Getting Beijing to stick to Washington’s policy on Pyongyang and trying to cool down tensions will be top of his agenda during the visit, according to Zhao Tong, a fellow with the Nuclear Policy Programme at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy in Beijing.
“Pompeo will brief his Chinese counterparts on the results of his Pyongyang trip and try to persuade China to keep its North Korea policy in line with that of the US because the gap between the two is apparently widening,” Zhao said.
“Managing the troublesome US-China bilateral relationship will be another important mission… At a time of uncertainty and mistrust, it is highly important to keep high-level communications open and effective, to avoid deeper misjudgment,” he said.
Pompeo will try to find common ground on trade and other disputes, according to Harry Kazianis, director of defence studies at the Centre for the National Interest in Washington.
“Why US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to China is quite simple: US-China relations are near rock bottom, while, at the same time, diplomacy with North Korea has reached a make-or-break moment,” he said.
