America’s top diplomat on Friday said the US would take action if China declined to intervene in the military deployment of North Korea, a hermit state and Beijing ally the US has long accused of playing a destabilising role in East Asia.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he has told his Chinese counterparts that Washington wants Beijing’s help in handling the North Korean “nuclear programme” and denuclearising the Korean peninsula. He said the US would bolster its defence alliances with Japan and South Korea if China refrained from intervening.

Directing his remarks at China during a fireside chat at the Aspen Security Forum in the US state of Colorado, Blinken said: “We believe that you have unique influence and we hope that you’ll use it to get better cooperation from North Korea.

“But if you can’t or if you won’t, then we’re going to have to continue to take steps that aren’t directed at China but that China probably won’t like because it goes to strengthening and shoring up not only our own defences but also those of South Korea and Japan and a deepening of the work that all three of us are doing together.”

Beijing has criticised Washington’s defence alliances in East Asia, viewing them as efforts to monitor or contain China’s military. Seoul and Tokyo resent Pyongyang’s military tests, which sometimes take place near their airspace.

North Korea has conducted “one missile launch after another”, Blinken said. On July 12, Pyongyang carried out a second flight test of its Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile.

China, North Korea’s Communist neighbour, has offered it fuel and food aid in the past and brokered international dialogue on the country’s militarisation.

Blinken’s comments followed the disappearance on Tuesday of Private Travis King, an American soldier who ran into North Korea during a civilian tour near the border with South Korea.

The secretary of state said he had no updates on King’s whereabouts but that “there are certainly concerns” he might be subjected to torture in North Korea.

The US is now working to anchor a declining Sino-American relationship, Blinken said on Friday. He, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and President Joe Biden’s special climate envoy John Kerry have all visited China within the past two months.

“It was important for us to put some stability back into this relationship, to put a floor under it, to make sure that the competition we’re clearly in does not veer into conflict, and that starts with engagement,” the diplomat said.

Blinken said China could help stem production of the illegal drug fentanyl that reaches the US through Mexico, control global climate change, and allow for the release of American detainees.

“If we weren’t engaged, we would be rightfully tagged with being irresponsible,” he said.

But challenges persist, and Blinken said on Friday the US had started a formal investigation into reports of Chinese hacking into US government emails.

  • birdcat
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    1 year ago

    I’m not a religious person, but this shit makes me pray for more competent diplomats than Blinken.

    He said the US would bolster its defense alliances with Japan and South Korea if China refrained from intervening.

    They will do that anyway. Plus new military bases in the Philippines. But dprk super evil for building defense capabilities within its borders, ok. But all that and also the intense militarization of Japan, for example, can be seen as a direct result of the desire to have functioning self defense. If you cannot see that, look at the past and research what Japan did in Korea, its not pretty, really, really, really not pretty.

    The secretary of state said he had no updates on (Travis) King’s whereabouts but that “there are certainly concerns” he might be subjected to torture in North Korea.

    Ye, and there certainly are concerns that they clone him and mix his DNA with killer dolphins to create an unstoppable super soldier. How come thousands defect from dprk and no one cares, and those people get TV shows and whatnot (used for propaganda), but if one guy does the opposite even the highest US officials cannot resist conspiracy theories?

    “It was important for us to put some stability back into this relationship, to put a floor under it, to make sure that the competition we’re clearly in does not veer into conflict, and that starts with engagement,” the diplomat said.

    Literal bullyspeak. If you forgive me the anthomorpization, that’s the language someone uses when beating his wife and then looks for reasonable ways to stop the escalation of the abuse.

    And that leads me to also not give any value to statement such as

    Blinken said China could help stem production of the illegal drug fentanyl that reaches the US through Mexico, control global climate change.

    While that is true, everything points to the conclusion that from the side of the US the desire to escalate things is far greater than finding solutions for any problems. Like, who benefits from all the now all so en vogue China-blame regarding the fentanyl crisis, how many lives does it save? China has tried to control (regulate) that substance since 2019. Imagine how many deaths could have been avoided if there had been better relations and cooperation between those countries.

    • hglman
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      1 year ago

      Meanwhile, the US openly suggests that it’s bad that poppy production in Afghanistan has stopped.

      • jcit878@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I have no idea what the context of that quote relates to, but poppies are used in things other than heroin too (medical uses)