The latest high-level exchange between China and North Korea again highlights stalled progress since the Trump-Kim summit.
North Korea’s foreign minister said his country remains committed to ending its nuclear weapons program in talks Friday with his Chinese counterpart, according to China’s Foreign Ministry.
The talks in Beijing between North Korea’s Ri Yong Ho and China’s Wang Yi came amid a lack of progress in international efforts to persuade North Korea to reverse its drive to build a nuclear arsenal.
China is North Korea’s most important ally, but has agreed to increasingly strict United Nations economic sanctions over its programs to develop nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. In fact, as of 2017, analysts had pointed to a remarkably chilly relationship between the two neighbors, but that seemingly changed along with North Korea’s diplomatic outreaches to South Korea and the United States. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time in March 2018, over five years after Xi assumed office. Since then, Kim has travelled twice more to China, for a total of three meetings with Xi. Visits and dialogues between high-ranking officials on both sides have also gained pace.
Xi did not attend celebrations of the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s founding in September, seen as a sign that Beijing expected more concrete steps by Kim toward denuclearization.
