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China willing to help bring N Korea back to disarmament talks, says Kerry

BEIJING — United States Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday he had won a commitment from China to help bring a belligerent North Korea back to nuclear disarmament talks, despite him butting heads with Chinese leaders over a series of increasingly aggressive steps Beijing has taken to assert itself in territorial disputes with its smaller neighbours.

BEIJING — United States Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday he had won a commitment from China to help bring a belligerent North Korea back to nuclear disarmament talks, despite him butting heads with Chinese leaders over a series of increasingly aggressive steps Beijing has taken to assert itself in territorial disputes with its smaller neighbours.

Mr Kerry met Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials as he sought to underscore the Obama administration’s commitment to refocusing US foreign policy on the Asia-Pacific amid a myriad other global priorities.

Mr Kerry praised China for joining the US in calling for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programmes and said he urged Beijing to “use every tool at its disposal” to convince its communist neighbour to return to the long-stalled disarmament talks.

North Korea “must take meaningful, concrete and irreversible steps towards verifiable denuclearisation and it needs to begin now,” Mr Kerry said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would never allow chaos or war on the Korean Peninsula. “China is serious on this, as shown not only in our words but in our actions,” Mr Wang said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

While China is North Korea’s only significant ally and main source of economic assistance, the extent of Beijing’s influence, and willingness to use it, is unclear following a purge in the isolated country’s leadership.

Diplomats say Beijing received no prior warning ahead of the arrest and execution in December of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who had been considered Pyongyang’s point man on China affairs.

Nuclear talks involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan, broke down at the end of 2008, and US officials say they see no point of restarting talks until Pyongyang makes good on its prior commitments to dismantle its nuclear programmes.

Mr Kerry, however, was less sanguine about China’s response to US concerns about its increasing territorial assertiveness, especially its declaration of an air defence zone over islands in the East China Sea last November that is at the heart of an increasingly heated dispute between Beijing and Tokyo. China has suggested it might do the same in the South China Sea. The unilateral move had raised regional concerns last year and the US has said it does not recognise the zone.

Mr Kerry said he told the Chinese of the “need to establish a calmer, more rule-of-law based, less confrontational approach” with respect to its territorial disputes.

He said he urged all sides to show restraint and said any further moves by China, particularly on any future air defence zones, should be conducted in an “open, transparent, accountable way”.

In response to Mr Kerry’s comments yesterday, Mr Wang called on the US to respect China’s sovereign interests in the East China and South China seas. According to Xinhua, Mr Wang said no one can shake China’s determination to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Meanwhile, in a stridently anti-Japanese editorial yesterday, Xinhua said the US must pressure Tokyo into ceasing its “provocative moves” or risk a regional conflict in the future.

“The United States has to know that, while Beijing has always been trying to address territorial brawls with some neighbouring countries through peaceful means, it will not hesitate to take steps to secure its key national security interests according to China’s sovereign rights,” it said. AP

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