PHNON PENH (AFP) NOV 12- US President Joe Biden landed in Asia on Saturday vowing to urge Chinese leader Xi Jinping to rein in North Korea when they hold their first face-to-face meeting at next week’s G20 summit.
Biden touched down in Phnom Penh for meetings with Southeast Asian leaders ahead of his encounter with his Chinese counterpart on Monday in Bali.
The meeting between the two superpowers comes after a record-breaking spate of missile tests by North Korea sent fears soaring that the reclusive state would soon conduct its seventh nuclear test.
In Monday’s meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Biden will tell Xi that China — Pyongyang’s biggest ally — has “an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters.
Biden will also tell Xi that if North Korea’s missile and nuclear build-up “keeps going down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region.”
Sullivan said Biden would not make demands on China but rather give Xi “his perspective”. In other words, “North Korea poses a threat not only to the United States, but to (South Korea) and Japan, and to the peace and stability of the region as a whole.”
Sullivan said it was “up to her, of course,” whether China wanted to increase pressure on North Korea. But as North Korea rapidly builds up its missile capabilities, “the operational situation is more serious at the moment,” Sullivan said.
Since Biden took office in January 2021, Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi Jinping have spoken on the phone numerous times.However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and President Xi Jinping’s reluctance to travel abroad, they were unable to meet in person ever in history.
Washington and Beijing have clashed over issues ranging from trade in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to human rights and Taiwan’s autonomous island status, but the two sides have plenty to talk about the issues.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged the two sides to work together, warning Friday of “a growing risk that the global economy will be divided into two parts, led by the two biggest economies — the United States and China.”
Before the G20, Biden will push the US’s commitment to Southeast Asia in meetings with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), seeking to counter Beijing’s influence in the region.
China has been flexing its muscles — through trade, diplomacy and military clout — in recent years in a region it sees as its strategic backyard.
Biden flew into Phnom Penh with an agenda emphasizing his administration’s policy of “elevating” the US presence in the region as a guarantor of stability, Sullivan said.
Biden will argue for “the need for freedom of navigation for lawful, unimpeded commerce, and for ensuring that the United States is playing a constructive role in maintaining peace and stability in the region.”
“He wants to use the next 36 hours to build on that foundation to take American engagement forward,” Sullivan said, noting this will include raising the US-ASEAN ties at the summit to a “comprehensive strategic partnership.”
