By james art Thursday, October 31, 2024 | 6:08 in the evening
WASHINGTON — The United States and South Korea have urged China to use its influence over Russia and North Korea to prevent an escalation after Pyongyang sent thousands of troops to Russia to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine. So far, Beijing has remained silent.
In a rare meeting earlier this week, three senior U.S. diplomats met with China’s ambassador to the United States to highlight U.S. concerns and urge China to use its influence over North Korea to try to curb cooperation, according to an official of the State Department, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Thursday that the countries had “a solid conversation just this week” and that China knows the U.S. expectation is that “they will use the leverage that they have to work with to limit these activities.”
“But I think it’s a search signal that’s coming not only from us, but from countries around the world,” he said at a news conference in Washington with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts.
Liu Penyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said in a statement that China’s position on the Ukraine crisis is “consistent and clear.”
China is committed to “peaceful negotiations and a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. This position remains unchanged. China will continue to play a constructive role to that end,” Liu said.
The US says 8,000 North Korean troops are in Russia near the border with Ukraine and are preparing to help the Kremlin fight Ukrainian troops in the coming days. China has yet to publicly comment on the move.
Beijing has forged a “no-holds-barred” partnership with Moscow, and although it has also been a key ally of Pyongyang, experts say Beijing may not approve of a closer military partnership between Russia and North Korea because it sees it as destabilizing in the region.
The partnership between Russia and North Korea runs counter to Beijing’s goal of a peaceful Korean Peninsula, said Shi Inhong, an international relations expert at China’s Renmin University.
Beijing is “aware of the complexity and danger of the situation,” Xi said, noting that “the fact that China has still not said anything about the North Korea-Russia military alliance agreement shows that China strongly disagrees with him”.
Dennis Wilder, a senior fellow at the US-China Dialogue Initiative on Global Affairs at Georgetown University, called Beijing’s “radio silence” on North Korea’s move “stunning.” He said Beijing had to strike a balance between supporting Moscow and not angering the West, and that Chinese President Xi Jinping could “for his own sake ignore everything”.
Xi has developed a personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and “he cannot see Putin fail,” Wilder said this week at a panel discussion organized by the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.
At the same time, Xi cannot anger the Europeans and Americans when his country’s economy is struggling, Wilder said. “So he’s not going to say anything publicly about it,” Wilder said.
Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the same panel discussion that for China, “there’s probably a combination of a little bit of irritation, a little bit of panic, and a little bit that they don’t know what to do about the current situation.
It was unclear whether Beijing was informed in advance of Pyongyang’s move, Cha said. Beijing may also worry that Russia is gaining more influence than China over North Korea, Cha said.
Austin said Thursday that China “needs to ask Russia some tough questions at this point and whether it intends to expand this conflict through this kind of behavior.”
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Dan Crittenbrink and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs James O’Brien met with Chinese envoy Xie Feng in Washington on Tuesday, according to the State Department official , which would not describe the Chinese response.
Lu Chao, director of the Institute of American and East Asian Studies at Liaoning University in northeast China’s Liaoning Province, said the US should not expect China to rule North Korea.
“It’s not that China is responsible for running North Korea and the US is responsible for running South Korea,” Lu said. “I hope the US government understands China’s position.
Lu also said the troop deployment was “a matter between Russia and North Korea,” while China’s stance remained unchanged that the conflict should not escalate.
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AP researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.