Trump, Kim second summit: China backs North Korea

Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a summit this week that reasserted China’s role in the denuclearisation process ahead of an expected second summit between Kim and his US counterpart Donald Trump

Chinese President Xi Jinping offered Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader Kim Jong-un firm backing in deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States, insisting the two sides should meet “halfway”, Chinese state media said on Thursday.

Kim visited Beijing this week for two days of talks that reasserted China’s role in the process

and were seen as a strategy session ahead of an expected second summit between the North Korean leader and US President Donald Trump.

At their first meeting in Singapore in June, Kim and Trump signed a vaguely worded document with Kim pledging to work towards the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.”

But progress has since stalled with Pyongyang and Washington – which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea – disagreeing over what that means.

The DPRK wants relief from the multiple sets of sanctions imposed on it over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, while the US wants the measures to remain in place until it gives up its arms – something Pyongyang has made no public promise to do.

China also wants the sanctions relaxed and Xi said he “hopes that the DPRK and the United States will meet each other halfway” according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.

Xi “spoke highly of the positive measures taken by the DPRK side,” Xinhua added.

North Korea has carried out six nuclear blasts and launched missiles it says are capable of reaching the whole of the United States, but has carried out no such tests for more than a year, and blew up the entrances to a nuclear testing ground it said it no longer needed.

Pyongyang has rejected demands for what it calls its “unilateral” disarmament as “gangster-like.”

Trump’s rhetoric following the Singapore meeting has assumed a commitment from Pyongyang, without mentioning the US nuclear umbrella in the northeast Asian region, which the DPRK wants removed.

China is the North’s sole major ally and key trade partner but relations had deteriorated over Pyongyang’s nuclear activities, before warming up last year, with Kim meeting Xi three times.

Kim “raised concern” about the impasse in talks with the US, according to Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency, which said the Chinese leader had issued a ringing endorsement of the North’s position.

“Xi Jinping said that the legitimate issues raised by the DPRK are rightful demands and that he fully agrees that the DPRK’s reasonable interests should be justly resolved,” it said

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