(Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis)
China was disappointed over the United States President Donald Trump's decision to delay a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to North Korea, particularly because Trump cited Beijing's supposed lack of support for Washington's push to fully denuclearize Pyongyang as one of his reasons.
Negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program have been stalled since June after Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Pyongyang has since been urging Washington to declare peace before it abandons its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles development completely. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has been insistent that a peace deal will only be announced after concrete evidence that Pyongyang had stopped its nuclear weapon development entirely.
In a series of tweets on Aug. 25, Trump said he instructed Pompeo to delay his trip to North Korea because he feels that there is no sufficient progress to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. He also believes that China is not helping with the process of denuclearization because of the ongoing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.
The United States' statement undermines facts and was irresponsible, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement which was first reported by CBS News. The ministry underscored the country's support of denuclearizing North Korea and advancing permanent political settlement regarding the matter. The ministry appealed to both parties to be more sincere and flexible regarding settlement instead of being impulsive and prejudiced in making decisions.
Cheng Xiaohe, an expert on North Korea relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said China is abiding by the sanctions imposed by the international community on North Korea even if it is lending some economic aid to Pyongyang. The analyst told The New York Times that China hopes to end North Korea's nuclear program, especially that the country used to test and fire nuclear weapons close to the Chinese border. China may have relaxed its stance on North Korea because it wants to sustain the renewed ties with North Korea but this does not mean that it will stop negotiating for its denuclearization, Cheng suggested.
President Xi Jinping is scheduled to make his first state visit Pyongyang. At present, North Koreans workers still comprised the majority of employees at Chinese textile factories in the northeastern part of the country. North Korea is also increasingly warming up to Chinese tourists as it is set to welcome about 500,000 tourists from Beijing this year.
Meanwhile, South Korea described Trump's delay of Pompeo's visit to North Korea as "unfortunate." The visit would have been a substantial progress for the negotiations and would have been a step closer towards peace in the Korean Peninsula. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa additionally called for China to continue fostering its constructive role toward resolution of the nuclear crisis in North Korea.
