US President Joe Biden will look at ways to contain Pyongyang after its spate of missile tests in talks with South Korean and Japanese leaders on Sunday, a day before a high-level meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.
A record-breaking spate of missile launches by the North in recent weeks has raised fears that the reclusive regime will soon conduct its seventh nuclear test.
The White House says Biden will urge China to curb Pyongyang’s activities when he holds his first face-to-face meeting with Xi on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia on Monday.
Biden will meet with his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday to discuss ways to counter the threat posed by the North’s “illegal weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs,” the White House said.
The tripartite meeting on the sidelines of an East Asia summit in Phnom Penh comes after a series of tests by the North earlier this month, including an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Pyongyang increased its launches in response to large-scale air exercises between the US and South Korea, which the North described as “aggressive and provocative”.
Biden will use his closely-watched talks with Xi on Monday to urge China to use its influence as North Korea’s main ally to pressure Kim Jong Un’s regime to cool down.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the president would not make any demands but would warn Xi that further missile and nuclear build-up would mean the United States would increase its military presence in the region — something exasperating Beijing refuses.
“North Korea poses a threat not just to the United States, not just to (South Korea) and Japan, but to peace and stability throughout the region,” Sullivan told reporters.
– Diplomatic Lightning –
Biden flew to Phnom Penh from the COP27 climate conference as part of a US effort to strengthen its influence in Southeast Asia to counterbalance China.
China has flexed its muscles in recent years – through trade, diplomacy and military prowess – in a region it sees as its strategic backyard.
Biden has delivered a veiled swipe at Beijing in talks with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional bloc.
He said the United States would work with ASEAN to “defend against significant threats to the rules-based order and the rule of law.”
While the president did not refer to China by name, Washington has long criticized Beijing’s efforts to subvert international norms on everything from intellectual property to human rights.
Biden and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang sat on either side of Cambodian leader Hun Sen at a gala dinner to mark the ASEAN summit on Saturday night.
Biden goes into the meeting with Xi buoyed by better-than-expected midterm elections at home, in which his Democratic Party retained control of the US Senate and belied predictions of a Republican “red wave.”
For his part, Xi was anointed by the Chinese Communist Party Congress last month for a historic third term as supreme leader.
Li met International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva at the ASEAN meeting on Saturday, when he also addressed the attendees.
Sunday’s East Asia Summit rounds out the first in a trilogy of summits, followed by the G20 on the resort island of Bali and an APEC meeting in Bangkok.
The consequences of the war in Ukraine will dominate the coming talks, with Russian President Vladimir Putin absent by name.
Shunned by the West for his invasion of Ukraine, Putin has sent his veteran foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in his place.
Observers will be watching for a repeat of the strikes staged by Lavrov and Western officials at meetings earlier this year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to attend the G20 virtually after his request to address the ASEAN meeting was turned down.
