Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson called the sanctions \u201ca good outcome, \u201d but the Chinese foreign minister told the North not to \u201cprovoke the international society\u2019s good will.\u201d<\/b>
\nMANILA \u2014 A day after the United Nations Security Council passed its toughest sanctions against North Korea, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson met with his South Korean and Chinese counterparts here in hopes of ratcheting up pressure on Pyongyang.
In a midday conclave on Sunday with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha of South Korea, Mr. Tillerson hailed in his typically understated fashion the United Nations vote, which could cost North Korea nearly $1 billion a year, or about one-third of its foreign earnings.
\u201cIt was a good outcome, \u201d Mr. Tillerson said with a smile.
Mr. Kang, sitting across the table from him, could not resist chiming in: \u201cIt was a very, very good outcome.\u201d
Despite Mr. Tillerson\u2019s obvious glee, though, the man of the moment here at the annual ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, was the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, a dashing diplomat who unlike Mr. Tillerson held a news conference and direct talks with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong.
Mr. Wang said the two had had \u201can intensive conversation, \u201d and in unusually strong terms, he later urged North Korea to show restraint.
\u201cDo not violate the U. N.\u2019s decision or provoke the international society\u2019s good will by conducting missile launching or nuclear tests, \u201d Mr. Wang said.
He also said, \u201cOf course, we would like to urge other parties like the United States and South Korea to stop increasing tensions.\u201d
A year ago, the Chinese were on their heels in this region. An international tribunal in The Hague last July delivered a sweeping rebuke of China\u2019s behavior in the South China Sea, including its construction of artificial islands, finding that its expansive claim to sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis.
The case, brought against China by the Philippines, seemed like a turning point in China\u2019s disputes with a host of regional players, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.
A few months before that ruling, 12 nations in the Pacific region concluded more than seven years of negotiations by signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a trade agreement that bound much of Southeast Asia together with the United States and Japan in an economic partnership intended to fight China\u2019s growing economic hegemony in the region.
While China had its own regional trade accord, the United States-led pact had become the preferred agreement, with several nations that had missed out on the initial round of negotiations expressing interest in joining in a second round.
How things have changed.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, elected last year, has backed down from his country\u2019s insistence that China abandon the shoals at the heart of the tribunal\u2019s decision, preferring instead to accept significant Chinese economic assistance.
In a news conference on Friday, the Philippine foreign affairs secretary, Alan Peter Cayetano, said that the fight with China was not worth the cost.
\u201cIf we go harsh with everyone, our people will suffer \u2014 trade, direct foreign investments, tourism, \u201d Mr. Cayetano said.
With the Philippines serving as host to Asean, the country\u2019s about-face lifted a significant cloud over China, with only Vietnam reportedly continuing to insist that the group condemn Beijing\u2019s actions.
Instead, Asean and China adopted a fairly weak negotiating framework for a code of conduct in the South China Sea \u2014 several steps removed from anything that could force China to abandon its territorial claims or give up the seven islands it has built in the disputed waters, three of which are equipped with runways and military hardware.
Mr. Wang said the adoption of the framework created a solid foundation for negotiations that could start this year, if \u201cthe situation in the South China Sea is generally stable and on the premise that there is no major interference from outside parties, \u201d according to Reuters.
Few believe the framework will lead China to conclude a binding agreement anytime soon.
Perhaps even more important, in his first days in office, President Trump renounced TPP. That action, along with his years of denunciations of the trading policies of Japan and China and a promised \u201cAmerica First\u201d pivot, seemed to many in the region to represent a significant retreat by the United States from its military and economic engagement here, and an important victory for China.
President Barack Obama had lavished attention on the region, where he spent part of his childhood and which has a population of more than 620 million and a collective economy of around $2.4 trillion, the third-largest in Asia behind those of China and Japan.
Geographically astride the world\u2019s busiest and most strategic shipping lanes, the region was the fulcrum of the administration\u2019s rebalancing toward Asia.
Mr. Trump has yet to demonstrate a similar interest or commitment to the region.
In his opening remarks to the conference, Mr. Tillerson sought to put to rest fears that the United States would abandon the region, saying that his multiple meetings with ambassadors \u201cis indicative of the importance that the United States pays and places on this relationship with Asean.\u201d
And while Mr. Tillerson chose not to meet with journalists on Sunday, his top diplomat for the region, Susan Thornton, the acting assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said that multiple visits by top administration officials had demonstrated its continued importance to the United States.
\u201cThe engagement is not a question, \u201d Ms. Thornton said.
Still, Ms. Thornton gave credit to the Chinese for supporting Saturday\u2019s vote in the United Nations against North Korea.
\u201cThe fact that the Chinese were helpful and instrumental really in setting up this set of sanctions, this really sweeping set of international sanctions, shows that they realize it\u2019s a huge problem that they need to take on and is a threat to them, \u201d she said.
But Ms. Thornton cautioned that Beijing has often failed to follow through on its promised tough measures against Pyongyang. China accounts for more than 90 percent of North Korea\u2019s external trade, and it has long avoided tough economic sanctions against the North for fear that a collapse of the government would lead to a flood of refugees, as well as the North\u2019s reunification with the South, putting a close American ally directly on China\u2019s border.
\u201cI think we still are going to be watchful as to their implementation of the sanctions, \u201d Ms. Thornton said, adding, \u201cBut this is definitely an important step.\u201d
Also on Sunday, Mr. Tillerson met with Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia. Mr. Lavrov has often spoken expansively and sometimes humorously in the moments before or after meeting top American diplomats. But though he and Mr. Tillerson both smiled and appeared relaxed as they made small talk in the moments before their official meeting, neither said anything to a media contingent briefly ushered into their presence.
Mr. Trump signed legislation on Wednesday imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting his own authority to lift them days after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia decided to reduce the American diplomatic mission in Russia by 755 employees, actions that have plunged relations between the two countries to their lowest point in decades.
In comments broadcast on Sunday on Russian television, Mr. Lavrov said that Mr. Tillerson had asked about the details of the reductions in American diplomatic staff in Russia and that Mr. Lavrov had explained how it would work, according to a translation provided by The Associated Press.
Mr. Lavrov also said Mr. Tillerson had promised to send the United States special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, to Moscow for discussions.<\/p>\n