The White House on Wednesday said that North Korea is now a "strategic liability for China" and could affect the stability in the region. The statement was made after Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan.
The US made the statement just days ahead of a crucial meeting between the US President Donald Trump and the Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in Florida this week. Reports state that North Korea would take a centre stage in the discussions between the two leaders.
"It is now quite clearly a strategic liability, and it is one that is having an impact on the region," Matt Pottinger, Senior Director for Asia at the National Security Council at the White House told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.
"In terms of an area of co-operation, of course we would like to see China working closely with the United States to address the menace emanating from North Korea - their weapons programs, the provocations that we're seeing every week; missile launches, including one that we just had not too many hours ago," Pottinger said. "I think it's in Beijing's interest. I think that North Korea long ago ceased to be a strategic asset for China," he added.
The news conference at the White House was also addressed by Susan Thornton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Thorton said that the time to hold talks with North Korea is over.
"Strategic patience has run out. This problem has really become very urgent, and it is, destabilising to the entire region and actually further than the region now, reaches across the globe with the progress that North Korea is making in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile," Thorton said, according to PTI.
Thorton added that the US feels that the North Korean threat has become an urgent issue and that it will make an effort to gather support from its partners across the world to take strong action against Pyongyang.
"The US would not only be talking with the Chinese on this issues, but also the the US Ambassador to the UN has convened a ministerial meeting in New York later this month to talk and galvanise a lot more support from our other partners and allies around the world," she said.
Thorton said that the upcoming meeting will be chaired by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and would pave a way forward on the issue in an urgent manner. She said that the US feels that North Korea has crossed a line and there is no hope in negotiations with the nation.
"Because we feel that this problem has now crossed a certain line and we can no longer hope for some kind of reversion to negotiations. We need to do something proactive to change the situation and get some results, and we hope that the Chinese are going to be involved in that," she said.
