Apec Summit: after Putin's, Kim's missiles weaken Xi's diplomacy
North Korean ballistic rocket falls near Japan as Chinese president meets with Asia-Pacific leaders in Bangkok. On 15 November at the opening of the G20 in Bali almost 100 Russian missiles had hit Ukraine. Xi-Kishida meeting: Tokyo calls for Beijing's contribution to curb Pyongyang; differences over Senkaku islands and Taiwan.
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Today's launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile by North Korea has rocked the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum summit: the second blow in less than a week to the diplomacy of Xi Jinping, who is attending the two-day meeting in Bangkok that closes tomorrow.
Vladimir Putin, another 'friend' of China like North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, had sent the G20 summit in Bali into turmoil: on 15 November, almost 100 Russian missiles hit several targets in Ukraine.
Just as with Indonesia's summit of the world's 20 largest economies, Apec's meeting in Thailand Xi was scrambling to mend the diplomatic canvas ripped apart by international geopolitical tensions and isolation over the Covid-19 pandemic. In the end, he found himself pressed from all sides to help curb Russia's aggression of Ukraine and Pyongyang's belligerent missile tests.
Already yesterday, during their first bilateral talks Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida asked Xi to address the issue of the North Korean nuclear and missile programme at the UN Security Council, where in tandem with Moscow the Chinese oppose new sanctions against the Kim regime.
At about the same time Pyongyang fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan. According to the Japanese government, today's missile had the capacity to hit every corner of the US. It would have landed off Hokkaido in northern Japan, most likely within Japan's exclusive economic zone.
Since the beginning of the year, North Korea has tested more than 50 missiles (and may be ready for a new nuclear test), justifiying these operations as responses to joint military manoeuvres by the US and South Korea.
It is almost a foregone conclusion that Kishida's appeal to Xi will fall on deaf ears: as with the Russian-Ukrainian war, Beijing does not intend to intervene directly on Kim, and perhaps does not even have the right levers to do so - which was also stressed by US President Joe Biden.
In their Bangkok meeting, Xi and Kishida agreed to work to stabilise relations between their countries and to keep communication channels open on security issues. A détente scenario along the lines of what happened between the Chinese leader and Biden in Bali on 14 November.
However, Sino-Japanese differences remain marked. Kishida said he told Xi of his government's "serious concerns" over China's attempts to challenge Japanese control of the Senkaku. Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyu, claims these islands in the East China Sea as its own, often sending civilian or military vessels into its vicinity, which Tokyo considers as territorial waters.
Kishida also complained about the launch of five Chinese ballistic missiles into Japan's exclusive economic zone last August. Beijing had fired the blasts in response to a visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
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12/02/2016 15:14
06/07/2006
