Abe Swipes at China, Russia After Trump Call on North Korea

EghtesadOnline: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on China and Russia to do more to stop North Korea after the isolated regime test-fired its second intercontinental ballistic missile in a month.

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31 July 2017

Abe, speaking after a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, told reporters on Monday that they agreed more action was needed to mitigate the threat from North Korea. The comments echoed a statement over the weekend from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who called China and Russia “economic enablers” of the regime, according to Bloomberg.

“We have made consistent efforts to resolve the North Korean problem in a peaceful manner, but North Korea has ignored that entirely and escalated the situation in a one-sided way,” Abe said in Tokyo. “The international community, starting with China and Russia, must take this obvious fact seriously and increase pressure.”

The comments add to a growing rift between the world’s major powers over how to respond to Kim Jong Un’s regime. The U.S. and its allies want China and Russia -- which account for the bulk of North Korea’s trade -- to cut off financial flows to the country, while Beijing and Moscow are pushing for both sides to compromise.

China’s biggest fears related to North Korea remain a collapse of Kim’s regime that sparks a protracted refugee crisis, and a beefed-up U.S. military presence on its border.

Trump and Abe “committed to increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, and to convincing other countries to follow suit,” the White House said in a statement on Sunday. It said North Korea “poses a grave and growing direct threat” to the U.S. and its allies in the region.

United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley announced she wouldn’t call an emergency session of the Security Council to discuss the launch because "there is no point" if it produces nothing of consequence. Earlier this month, Russia and China blocked U.S.-led efforts to expand penalties against North Korea in a draft UN Security Council resolution condemning the July 4 missile test.

Trump has expressed periodic public frustration with Beijing over the pace of its efforts to curtail Kim. Late Saturday he again linked China’s actions to the broader U.S.-China trade relationship.

‘Very Disappointed’

“I am very disappointed in China,” he said in a series of Twitter posts. “Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!”

China’s Vice Commerce Minister Qian Keming said at a briefing on Monday that the North Korea nuclear issue should be kept separate from the U.S.-China trade relationship.

Abe on Monday signaled continued support for the U.S., on which Japan relies to provide the protection of a "nuclear umbrella." After the latest ICBM test, two Air Force B-1B bombers conducted bilateral exercises with South Korean and Japanese fighter jets.

Abe said on Monday that he and Trump "fully agreed" that more action was needed on North Korea. Japan last week announced new sanctions on the regime. The targets included two Chinese organizations thought to have dealings with the country, which it did not name.

The latest North Korean missile, which landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, reached an altitude of about 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles), according to South Korea’s military, almost 1,000 kilometers higher than the previous test. That indicates progress toward North Korea’s goal of developing a missile capable of hitting U.S. cities. North Korea’s state media cited Kim as claiming he could now strike the entire continental U.S.

In a development likely to raise tensions in Japan, national broadcaster NHK showed footage that appeared to indicate the missile landing in the sea was visible from the north of the country.