(Seoul) Chinese President Xi Jinping has written to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, offering to cooperate to “accelerate peace” in the world, North Korean state news agency KCNA reported on Saturday.
The letter comes as tensions are at their height on the Korean peninsula, after a record series of missile tests by Pyongyang and as Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have stepped up military cooperation.
Pyongyang notably launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on November 18 which fell off Japan, and Kim Jong-un threatened the United States with nuclear response if his country was attacked.
“The world, times and history are changing in unprecedented ways,” Xi said in response to a letter from Kim, who congratulated him on his historic reappointment. the head of the Chinese Communist Party and the country in October.
“Faced with this new situation, I am ready, with you, to contribute positively […] to accelerate peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and the rest of the world,” he continued.
China is North Korea’s most important ally and trading partner, under severe UN sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programs.
Following a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, China and Russia declined to join 14 countries, including the US, India, France and the UK , who condemned the Pyongyang ICBM firing on 18 November.
In May, Beijing and Moscow vetoed a draft resolution presented by Washington to strengthen sanctions against North Korea.
During an interview last week on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, US President Joe Biden asked Xi Jinping to “clearly” tell North Korea not to conduct another nuclear test, like Seoul and Washington. lend him the intention.
“It is certain that our diplomacy will endeavor to bring China to join the countries which condemn this publicly today and to use its influence to persuade” North Korea, had then declared a senior American official.