The United States is using regional tensions to bolster an anti-Beijing alliance, China’s ambassador to the Korean Peninsula told AFP, on a European tour amid weeks of nuclear rhetoric and nuclear tests. missiles by Pyongyang.
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“We are concerned about the intention of the United States to use the problems of the Korean Peninsula to hinder China,” Special Representative Liu Xiaoming said on Friday.
“It’s part of their Indo-Pacific strategy…to band together with their allies, to strengthen their alliance with South Korea and Japan,” he added, referring to the will of the United States and the allies to counter the rise of Chinese power.
In addition to the tension around Taiwan, tensions have risen in recent weeks on the peninsula, with the North carrying out a series of missile tests while the South and its American allies have organized large-scale military exercises.
Pyongyang, China’s ally, said on Friday it had successfully tested a solid-fuel ballistic missile, a technology with much less predictable nuclear launch capability.
In September, leader Kim Jong Un said his country’s nuclear power status was now “irreversible”.
For Mr. Liu, “people are focusing on the ‘North Korean’ nuclear launches and tests but they ignore that the reason why (the North Koreans) are doing this is the lack of a mechanism, a security structure” to guarantee peace on the peninsula.
Washington and Seoul justify their own exercises with the fact that Kim has ordered his army to intensify preparations for a “real war”.
Beijing, for its part, advocates an easing of United Nations Security Council sanctions in exchange for concrete disarmament measures.
Mr. Liu also regretted that the gestures made by North Korea under the administration of US President Donald Trump who had met Kim Jong Un in 2018 had not been followed by effects in Washington.
“Always the pressure, the sanctions, the confrontation, which makes dialogue impossible,” he accused.
After touring European capitals, including Berlin, Brussels and Paris, Liu said European leaders should “persuade the Americans to address the security issues” of North Korea.
His call comes days after French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his ambition for European “strategic autonomy”, especially in the context of the growing rivalry between the United States and China.
After a year of war in Ukraine that highlighted Europe’s dependence on the United States on defense issues, Mr Macron’s comments were poorly received by some European countries, notably those in the EU. East.
“We appreciate the independent strategy of certain European countries,” Mr. Liu slipped. “I think it serves the interests of Europe.”
With a return of the Chinese ambassador to Pyongyang after years of border closures due to Covid, European countries “hope to be able to reopen embassies and start exchanges with North Korea”, according to him.
Mr. Liu also said that Russia remains a reliable partner for the denuclearization of Korea despite the war in Ukraine and the many threatening statements from Moscow on the use of the atomic bomb.
“China and Russia share a lot of things when it comes to the Korean Peninsula,” he said. “We are all working for peace and stability.”
Asked about reports that North Korea is supplying Russia with ammunition for its war against Ukraine, the ambassador merely referred to official denials.
China is a “responsible member of the UN Security Council”, he also said of reports from the Financial Times daily that Hong Kong and Macao-based businessmen are smuggling oil into North Korea in defiance of UN sanctions.
“We are certainly fully fulfilling our obligations” in terms of enforcing North Korea’s oil import restrictions, he said.