President Trump is following China’s roadmap on how to handle the North Korean nuclear crisis, a Chinese diplomat told reporters Tuesday.
“It is fair to say that the relevant approach and initiative proposed by China and its endeavors in frequent interactions with other parties have played a positive and constructive role in getting the situation on the peninsula to where it is now,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a press conference.
Trump’s administration and Chinese officials have had tense negotiations about international pressure on North Korea. China has agreed to improve the implementation of sanctions, and even allowed the passage of new sanctions at the United Nations, but blocked the most aggressive American efforts. At the same time, the Chinese have blamed the U.S. for the rising tensions and called for Trump to suspend military exercises in exchange for Kim’s suspension of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
[READ: Here’s the full text of ‘historic’ document Trump, Kim signed at North Korea summit]
“China put forth the ‘suspension for suspension’ initiative and ‘dual-track’ approach,” Geng said Tuesday. “The facts have proven that the China-proposed ‘suspension for suspension’ initiative has been materialized and now the situation is also moving forward in the direction of the ‘dual-track’ approach.”
“Suspension for suspension” is a reference to the U.S. military exercises and North Korean tests. The “dual track” is China’s term for efforts to negotiate U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks in parallel with a peace treaty between North and South Korea.
“The current situation on the Korean Peninsula has not been caused by any individual party alone,” Wu Haitao, the Chinese ambassador to the U.N., said during a Security Council meeting in December. “Nor should any party be asked to take all responsibilities for resolving the issue. The parties concerned should try to meet each other halfway instead of engaging in mutual blaming, let alone shifting responsibilities onto others.”
At the time, the Trump administration rejected that proposal; then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in the same meeting, accused China of undermining the pressure campaign.
“Similarly, as Chinese crude oil flows to North Korean refineries, the United States questions China’s commitment to solving an issue that has serious implications for the security of its own citizens,” he said.
That posture has led some U.S. lawmakers to regard Chinese dictator Xi Jinping as using North Korea to advance its own goal of a diminished military presence in the region. “I suspect that maybe President Xi, behind the scenes with Kim Jong Un, is saying, ‘Listen, you give this crap up, but what you have to get for it is, you got to get the U.S. to pull out; that’s your price for complete denuclearization,’” Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson told the Washington Examiner.
Geng’s comments Tuesday followed Trump’s summit with Kim, a meeting followed by the president’s announcement that he would cancel U.S. military exercises with South Korea.
