Xi Jinping in phone call to Trump: calm down on North Korea; follow China’s lead

ALEXANDER MERCOURIS6 hours ago 99

Chinese President Xi Jinping follows up China's warning it will defend North Korea from US attack by telling US President Trump to calm down and work with China to achieve a peaceful solution to the crisis.

In typical Chinese fashion, after the mailed fist comes the velvet glove.Having warned the US via an editorial in Global Times yesterday that it will defend North Korea if the US invades North Korea and seeks to overthrow Kim Jong-un’s government, the Chinese government followed this up today with a telephone call to US President Trump by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Both of the main official media outlets of the Chinese government – the People’s Daily and the Xinhua news agency – give accounts of the call and of what Xi Jinping said.  The more detailed account of the call is however the one provided by Xinhua.  It reads as follows

 Chinese President Xi Jinping urged restraint regarding the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in a phone conversation with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on Saturday.

The concerned parties should avoid remarks and actions that could escalate tensions on the peninsula, Xi said, adding China is ready to work with the United States to appropriately resolve the issue.

Xi stressed that China and the United States have common interests in achieving denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and maintaining peace and stability there.

The concerned parities should strive to resolve the issue through dialogue and negotiation to reach a political solution, Xi said.

China is willing to keep close contacts with the United States, on the basis of mutual respect, to seek a sound settlement on the issue, he added.

Xi said he had a productive meeting with President Trump on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit last month in Hamburg, Germany.

Maintaining close contacts between the two leaders on issues of common concern is “very important for the development of the China-U.S. relations,” Xi added.

He urged the two sides to enhance dialogue and communication in accordance with the consensus previously reached, promote exchanges and cooperation in various fields, and appropriately deal with each other’s concerns, so as to ensure healthy and stable advancement of bilateral ties.

Furthermore, the Chinese president said that Beijing places high value on Trump’s state visit to China later this year, urging both sides to make good preparations for the visit.

Trump, for his part, also stressed the importance of maintaining close contacts between the two leaders on major issues and strengthening exchanges between their countries at all levels as well as in various areas.

The development of U.S.-China relations enjoys good momentum, he noted, voicing his belief that bilateral ties could be better.

The U.S. president also said that he is looking forward to his state visit to China.

On the Korean nuclear issue, Trump said the United States fully understands China’s efforts in resolving it, and is willing to continue to keep close contacts with Beijing on major international and regional issues of common concern.

(bold italics added)

The key words are the ones I have highlighted.

Xi Jinping told Donald Trump to moderate his language on the North Korean issue and to work in lockstep with China.  He pointed out to Trump that it is in the US interest to do so because China shares with the US the ultimate objective of the total denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.  However he also warned Trump that a failure by the US to work with China by taking unilateral steps unacceptable to China – such as a military strike against North Korea – will put the entire US-Chinese relationship in jeopardy.

That Xi Jinping particularly emphasised to Trump the last point is shown by the fact that the only actual words of his that Xinhua quotes touch on precisely this issue – “Maintaining close contacts between the two leaders on issues of common concern is “very important for the development of the China-U.S. relations.””

It is unlikely that in a diplomatic call Xi Jinping would have repeated the Chinese warning – with its implied threat of Chinese military action against the US – published yesterday in Global Times.  The Chinese would undoubtedly calculate that doing so would be needlessly provocative and might be construed by Trump as a Chinese attempt to box him into a corner, which given Trump’s present behaviour and mood might only provoke him into escalating further.  However the warning would have hovered in the background throughout the call, and would have determined its atmosphere.

This is all very typical of the Chinese style of diplomacy: first the public statement setting out in clear language China’s warning, but doing so in a way (through an editorial in an official newspaper) that is intended to avoid escalating the crisis further; then the seemingly emollient call intended to save the other side’s face by providing them a line of retreat – of course to the place the Chinese want them to retreat to!

I would add that there is no doubt that Xi Jinping during this call was following a strategy previously agreed by the whole Chinese leadership.

Xi Jinping’s call to Donald Trump is definitely not the only call the Chinese will have made to the leaders of a foreign government over the last two days.  The Chinese are undoubtedly coordinating closely with their Russian ally – Moscow will have been consulted before Xi Jinping’s call to Trump and will have been informed about it in advance, and will also be fully briefed about its outcome – and it is a certainty that senior Chinese officials – including quite possibly Xi Jinping himself – have also been speaking to Kim Jong-un and to other officials of his government.

One other government that the Chinese are also certain to be in touch with is the South Korean government, with Seoul no doubt increasingly alarmed at the way the US seems prepared to risk South Korea’s very existence in its own quest for security.

When dealing with a country like North Korea and with a leader as proud, inexperienced and volatile as Donald Trump it is never easy to be sure, but my strong guess is that Chinese diplomacy over the last two days has been effective, and that the most dangerous point of the crisis is over.

If so then I expect the shouting match between Washington and Pyongyang which has inexplicably and mysteriously blown up over the last few days to start to subside.http://theduran.com/xi-jinping-donald-trump-calm-down-north-korea-follow-china-lead/

CONFIRMED: US and North Korea “already talking” at UN Alexander Mercouris ALEXANDER MERCOURIS

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2 hours ago 99

Backchannel between middle rank US and North Korean diplomats established in New York, making opening the way to a possible breakthrough in relations like the one between the US and China in the 1970s.

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Even as the rhetorical battle between the US and North Korea threatens to spiral out of control, a report by the Associated Press suggests that their diplomats are already quietly talking to each other.

It seems that the diplomatic contacts between the US and North Korea are happening at the UN headquarters in New York, where middle rank diplomats of the two countries have been quietly talking to each other for some months.  Here is how Associated Press describes it

The contacts are occurring regularly between Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy for North Korea policy, and Pak Song Il, a senior North Korean diplomat at the country’s U.N. mission, according to U.S. officials and others briefed on the process. They weren’t authorized to discuss the confidential exchanges and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Officials call it the “New York channel.” Yun is the only U.S. diplomat in contact with any North Korean counterpart. The communications largely serve as a way to exchange messages, allowing Washington and Pyongyang to relay information.

It seems that though the contacts have mainly focused on work to get US citizens detained in North Korea released, Yun and Pak also discuss the general state of US-North Korean relations.

Moreover it seems that though there have been sporadic diplomatic contacts at this level between the US and North Korea for some time, the dialogue has become far more sustained – developing practically to the level of a ‘backchannel” – since the Trump administration took office

Trump, in some ways, has been more flexible in his approach to North Korea than President Barack Obama. While variations of the New York channel have been used on-and-off for years by past administrations, there were no discussions over the last seven months of Obama’s presidency after Pyongyang broke them off in anger over U.S. sanctions imposed on its leader, Kim. Obama made little effort to reopen lines of communication.

The contacts quickly restarted after Trump’s inauguration, other people familiar with the discussions say.

“Contrary to the public vitriol of the moment, the North Koreans were willing to reopen the New York channel following the election of President Trump and his administration signaled an openness to engage and ‘talk about talks,’” said Keith Luse, executive director of the National Committee on North Korea, a U.S.-based group that promotes U.S.-North Korean engagement.

It is not difficult to see the influence of Rex Tillerson – President Trump’s realist Secretary of State – behind these moves.

The Yun-Pak dialogue is for the moment little more than an exchange of information.  However if a decision is made to get talks properly started, it could serve as the vehicle to set them up.

A good precedent would be the channel Henry Kissinger opened to China with the help of Pakistani and Romanian diplomats in 1971, which led to Kissinger’s first secret trip to China and talks with Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in July 1971.  That eventually led to US President Nixon’s breakthrough visit to China in February 1972.

Kissinger’s contacts with China in 1971 had to be conducted in great secrecy because of the strong opposition to a normalisation of relations between the US and China which existed both in the US and China and also internationally.  Indeed relations between the US and China at this time were so fraught that the first public sign of a diplomatic thaw between the two countries was the visit of a US table-tennis team to China in April 1971.

It is difficult to recall today the extent to which in the 1950s and 1960s relations between US and China were as tense as those between the US and North Korea are today.  However the rhetoric used by the US and China about each other at that was every bit as tough as the rhetoric used by the US and North Korea about each other now.

Moreover the US during this period was also trying to overthrow of the Chinese government – and replace it with a pro-US ‘Chinese government’ it had in place in Taiwan – just as it was seeking regime change in North Korea until recently, especially during the period of the George W. Bush administration, and it also sought to enforce a worldwide economic blockade of China then, just it is trying to enforce a worldwide economic blockade of North Korea now.

In the event President Nixon went to Beijing and met with Mao Zedong – an individual as vilified then as Kim Jong-un is now – achieving what is still considered the greatest and most spectacularly successful stroke of diplomacy carried out by the US since the end of the Second World War.

North Korea is obviously not as important today as China was in the 1970s, though with the rapid advance of its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programme it is arguably more dangerous.  However there is no reason for the secrecy which circumstances forced on Nixon and Kissinger in 1971.  The entire world – apart from some recalcitrant politicians in the US, but including the governments of China, Russia, South Korea and Japan – would welcome US steps to normalise relations with North Korea.

If President Trump wants to secure his place his history he could do worse than copy the example of Kissinger and Nixon, and use the diplomatic channel available to him in New York – and the help offered to him by the Chinese and the Russians – to get himself an invitation to Pyongyang. http://theduran.com/us-north-korea-already-talking/

Angry China warns US on North Korea: back off and talk or risk disaster

ALEXANDER MERCOURIS15 hours ago 3,152

Commentaries in China's official media show growing Chinese anger at US grandstanding and intransigence on the North Korean issue.

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If the Chinese or anyone else imagined that the sanctions resolution recently passed by the UN Security Council would calm tensions in the Korean Peninsula, they must by now be disabused of that illusion.Though there have been no tests by North Korea since the UN Security Council vote – whether of ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons – the rhetoric instead of calming down has become heated.  Moreover for once it is Washington rather than Pyongyang that has taken the initiative in the war of words.

Thus after days of unwise bragging by President Trump about the UN Security Council resolution – which he claims (wrongly) to have sponsored, and which – to their intense irritation – he has “thanked” the Chinese and Russians for – we have had first President Trump’s “fire and fury” comment – which by the way looks to me calculated rather than spontaneous – and an almost equally belligerent statement from the US’s Defense Secretary General Mattis.

By now it should be obvious that there is nothing that delights the North Korean leadership more than calling the US’s bluff, so their response – wild and reckless threats of a missile demonstration around the US’s base in Guam – was exactly as might have been expected.

The US in turn is now responding by leaking plans of its “best of bad options” – attacking North Korea with its B1 bombers – even as everyone acknowledges that such a step is more likely to provoke North Korea than deter it.

It is difficult to discern much method in these actions, but on the assumption that the US has not entirely taken leave of its senses and that there is some thinking behind what it is saying and doing, it is possible to explain them in one of two ways

(1) President Trump and his administration have convinced themselves that it really was their threats and bluster which got the Chinese to agree to the sanctions resolution – even though that is certainly wrong – and that this has emboldened them to raise the temperature further in the belief that by doing so this will increase pressure the Chinese to give them more;

(2) President Trump and his administration have been spooked by the report from the Defense Intelligence Agency – uncorroborated though that is, and based on sources we can only guess – that North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programme has advanced much faster than expected, so that North Korea really does now have the capability to strike the US, and are overreacting to this news.

Of course these two explanations are not mutually exclusive, but on balance my opinion is that the more likely of the two – or the more important of the two – is (2).

Regardless, what is clear is that the Chinese are becoming increasingly exasperated and angry about this escalation of the rhetoric coming from Washington.  That this is so is confirmed by commentaries which have in China’s official media, notably the People’s Daily and Global Times.

Turning first to Global Times, an editorial there makes the obvious point that the US can never win a shouting match with North Korea for the simple reason that whilst every threat North Korea makes is immediately transmitted to the people of the US, the North Korean government’s total control of information means that the North Korean people will only hear of US threats against their country if the North Korean governments wants them to

The US can’t usually gain the upper hand in this war of words, as Pyongyang chooses whatever wording it likes, and what Washington says may not be heard by North Korean society. But US opinion has paid great attention to everything North Korea says.

The People’s Daily then made crystal clear China’s total opposition to US military action against North Korea

However, the bottom line on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is that there must not be any armed conflict there. There is no room for any related party to play with fire on the issue.

Exercising restraint is needed for making responsible choices to ensure peace, particularly at a moment approaching crisis

In truth it is little short of incredible that the military option against North Korea – a country which is now a nuclear power – is even being discussed.   Even some of Washington’s staunchest media allies understand its utter folly.  Here for example is what the London Times has to say about it in an editorial published today

If it really came to a pre-emptive US strike against Pyongyang, it is South Korea that would feel most of the fire and fury. North Korea has heavy artillery within shooting distance of Seoul, home to 25 million people. Despite the general anxiety about Kim’s intentions, it would be difficult indeed for the White House to sustain regional support for a US-led war…..

……An all-out attack on North Korea would certainly bring the country to its knees, given the overwhelming firepower of the US. The costs in civilian lives and the squandering of trust in the US in the region and across the world would make it a pyrrhic victory and an extraordinary tragedy. The other military option of limited punitive non-nuclear strikes every time Kim tests a missile would merely escalate the conflict without stopping the dictator. Attempting to topple the regime from within is, given Kim’s tight grip on the security machine, unlikely to succeed.

The People’s Daily then goes on to point out that it is US intransigence – specifically the US’s failure to abide by the agreements it reached with Pyongyang in the 1990s, and its refusal to negotiate with North Korea since then – which have brought the present situation about

It is fact that the DPRK missile and nuclear programs stalled during bilateral and multilateral talks, but multiplied over the past nine years since the six-party talks came to grinding halt, during which the United States sought to pressure and sanction Pyongyang.

Global Times for its part makes the point that all the threats and sanctions the US has thrown at North Korea have failed to prevent or even slow down its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programme

Since 2006 when North Korea conducted the first nuclear test, the US and North Korea have been engaged in a longstanding battle of wills. As North Korea’s nuclear and missile technologies develop, it is more difficult for the US to win the battle over North Korea. Washington has underestimated Pyongyang’s disregard for all the prices it has to pay in its pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Yet despite the dismal failure of this approach, the US still persists with it, still expecting in the face of all experience that will time succeed

However, Washington only wants to heighten the sanctions and military threats against Pyongyang, which is adding fuel to the flames. The North Korean nuclear issue is heading toward confrontation.

More and more analysts tend to believe that no matter what warnings the US sends or however tough the UN Security Council sanctions are, there is little possibility of Pyongyang stopping its missile launches.

Both Global Times and the People’s Daily then point to the only feasible solution to the crisis: the resumption of direct talks between North Korea and the US.  Both however make the point that in order for these talks to succeed the US must bring itself to acknowledge North Korea’s security concerns.

Here is how Global Times puts it

North Korea has almost been completely isolated by the outside world. Under such extreme circumstances, Pyongyang will weigh all its possible options. Washington should stimulate Pyongyang’s desire to engage with the outside world and return to the international community…..

Now it is time the US seriously responds to North Korea’s concerns for national security.

Whilst the more authoritative People’s Daily goes further and expresses itself in more detail, setting out clearly the nature of North Korea’s security concerns and the North Korean realities the US must accept

….. the Untied States, it should commit itself to realizing the fundamentals it has recently reiterated on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, including seeking no regime change in the DPRK nor a speedy Korean reunification.

It is advised that Washington, Seoul and Pyongyang take into serious consideration China’s proposal that they start from addressing their pressing security concerns to build up mutual trust, effectively paving the way for restoring talks.

The People’s Daily also restates what China sees as the essential precondition for the success of any talk

Pyongyang should suspend its ballistic missile and nuclear programs while Washington and Seoul suspend their joint military drills.

The alternative is a drift towards armed confrontation in which North Korea is outmatched by the US but arguably has far less to lose.  Here is how Global Times explains it

Despite overwhelming strength of the US, Pyongyang can risk everything if there is a showdown between it and Washington. The US should avoid such a scenario and it needn’t feel disgraced because of it.

(bold italics added)

To the Chinese all this must seem so obvious that they are probably baffled by the US leaders’ inability to understand it even when it is so patiently spelt out for them.

Like the Russians the Chinese – highly realistic and rational people that they are – probability find it difficult to understand how the constant need to appear “strong” and “tough” drives the actions of US politicians, even when those actions lead to results which are totally – and predictably – disastrous for the US.

The simple fact is that no-one loses an election in the US because they are perceived to be “strong” and “tough”, or wins an election when they are perceived to be “weak” and “soft”, and that fact is enough to precondition the US to seek confrontation rather than compromise.

One however senses in these commentaries that Chinese patience with the US is now wearing extremely thin.  With the Chinese perhaps sensing that opinion in East Asia is turning against Washington on the Korean issue, Chinese willingness t0 go on working with Washington on the Korean issue may be near its end point. http://theduran.com/china-warns-us-on-north-korea/

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