Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Kim in Beijing this week and said he hoped the United States and North Korea would « meet each other halfway. »
China and South Korea called for concessions from the United States as well as North Korea, ahead of a possible second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump, suggesting a US pressure campaign aimed at the North’s denuclearisation may be slipping.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on January 10 that he would cooperate with the international community to at least partially ease sanctions to allow for some inter-Korean business and tourism ventures, while later noting that Pyongyang needed to take « bold steps » towards denuclearisation to win concessions from Washington.
« I think North Korea knows that they clearly have to denuclearise for the easing of international sanctions, and the US also understands that there needs to be corresponding action to expedite the North’s denuclearisation, » Moon told reporters at the presidential Blue House.
Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Kim in Beijing this week and said he hoped the United States and North Korea would « meet each other halfway, » Chinese state media reported.
China, the North’s lone major ally, and US-backed South Korea have been key players in two years of « maximum pressure » led by the United States, but both countries are signalling an increased willingness to ease sanctions and improve ties with North Korea.
Pyongyang and Washington have been struggling to find a breakthrough despite a pledge by Kim at a landmark summit with Trump in Singapore in June to work towards denuclearisation « of the Korean peninsula ».
North Korea, which has been developing nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, has demanded Washington lift sanctions and declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War.
Those demands were in response to Pyongyang’s initial, unilateral steps toward denuclearisation that included dismantling its only known nuclear testing site and a key missile engine facility.
