In Beijing, Kerry Focuses on North Korea, Climate Change

amoy

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
5,982
Likes
1,849
In Beijing, Kerry Focuses on North Korea, Climate Change | The Diplomat
Kerry's trip was intended to highlight potential areas for U.S.-China cooperation.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Beijing today and Saturday as part of his trip to Asia, which also includes stops in South Korea and Indonesia. The trip, Kerry's fifth since assuming office last year, was held up by the Obama administration as further proof of a renewed U.S. focus on Asia. While in Beijing, Kerry focused on two main issues: the long-standing problem of how to roll back North Korea's growing nuclear program, and the newer question of how the U.S. and China can work together on climate change.

Kerry's remarks and official State Department comments made it clear that North Korea and climate change were his top two priorities. It's a bit surprising that maritime disputes weren't higher on the list, considering the almost-daily flood of news stories on the deteriorating China-Japan relationship, and vocal U.S. warnings against a Chinese air defense identification zone in the South China Sea. Kerry mentioned that his talks in Beijing touched upon these issues, including "the question of how an ADIZ might or might not come about." But he only got around to discussing maritime disputes after outlining the progress made on other subjects.

For this visit, the U.S. decided to focus on the potential for U.S.-China cooperation. Despite differences of opinion on North Korea and climate change, the U.S. and China do share similar goals, making these areas tools for potentially lowering tensions between Beijing and Washington. That's definitely not something we can say about maritime disputes in the South and East China Sea, where the U.S. and China have completely divergent opinions on both the end goal and the means of handling the disputes. For Kerry's visit, Washington and Beijing were making an effort to keep ties friendly by relegating this issue to the back burner — at least in public.
 

Global Defence

Articles

Top