America’s top diplomat on Friday said the US would take action if China declined to intervene in the military deployment of North Korea, a hermit state and Beijing ally the US has long accused of playing a destabilising role in East Asia.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he has told his Chinese counterparts that Washington wants Beijing’s help in handling the North Korean “nuclear programme” and denuclearising the Korean peninsula. He said the US would bolster its defence alliances with Japan and South Korea if China refrained from intervening.
Directing his remarks at China during a fireside chat at the Aspen Security Forum in the US state of Colorado, Blinken said: “We believe that you have unique influence and we hope that you’ll use it to get better cooperation from North Korea.
“But if you can’t or if you won’t, then we’re going to have to continue to take steps that aren’t directed at China but that China probably won’t like because it goes to strengthening and shoring up not only our own defences but also those of South Korea and Japan and a deepening of the work that all three of us are doing together.”
Beijing has criticised Washington’s defence alliances in East Asia, viewing them as efforts to monitor or contain China’s military. Seoul and Tokyo resent Pyongyang’s military tests, which sometimes take place near their airspace.
North Korea has conducted “one missile launch after another”, Blinken said. On July 12, Pyongyang carried out a second flight test of its Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile.
China, North Korea’s Communist neighbour, has offered it fuel and food aid in the past and brokered international dialogue on the country’s militarisation.
Blinken’s comments followed the disappearance on Tuesday of Private Travis King, an American soldier who ran into North Korea during a civilian tour near the border with South Korea.
The secretary of state said he had no updates on King’s whereabouts but that “there are certainly concerns” he might be subjected to torture in North Korea.
The US is now working to anchor a declining Sino-American relationship, Blinken said on Friday. He, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and President Joe Biden’s special climate envoy John Kerry have all visited China within the past two months.
“It was important for us to put some stability back into this relationship, to put a floor under it, to make sure that the competition we’re clearly in does not veer into conflict, and that starts with engagement,” the diplomat said.
Blinken said China could help stem production of the illegal drug fentanyl that reaches the US through Mexico, control global climate change, and allow for the release of American detainees.
“If we weren’t engaged, we would be rightfully tagged with being irresponsible,” he said.
But challenges persist, and Blinken said on Friday the US had started a formal investigation into reports of Chinese hacking into US government emails.
The south has wanted to make peace with the north and unite for a long long time, as do the people, but every time there are talks about this the US demands a seat at the table and scuppers those talks
Strange, the constant sabre rattling seems a bit odd for a country that wants to unite with its neighbour. I 'm guessing the constant missile launches towards Japan are a form of a friendly greeting.
North Korea is a paranoid, stalinist dictatorship held by the Kim family. Peace talks are a smoke screen to get international aid flowing into its borders, and once Kims get what they want, they walk away and start posturing. There can be no unification with the Kims in charge and thats why they have consistently failed.
As for the “military base” comment, China needs no military bases in NK because NK is one giant military base. Everything in that open prison of a country is bound to its military. Kims are already working with China as a buffer state, and opening military bases would be superflous.
The article linked is by two employees of a single EU institution, where the word “vassalization” is used for dramatic effect, and is certainly no official EU policy. If they wrote “EUs over reliance on US military power has made the EU a little bitch”, would you say “EU admits to being a little bitch”?
Thirdly, you don’t have to be on the FSBs payroll to be their asset. The Soviet Union was notorious for targeting western intellectuals with propaganda to get them to regurgitate it, then mockingly called them “useful idiots” behind their back. Modern day Russia has continued this trend, and I tend to regard anyone who invokes the spectre of nuclear annihilation a sucessfully demoralizred FSB asset. You are repeating talking points made in propaganda labs.
None of this changes the fact that it is accurate that it is China’s oldest ally or the fact that it is sovereign and makes its own decisions completely independent of China without their control or influence. Yes it’s hugely militarised, this only adds to the argument that it is NOT vassalised because that militarisation allows it to be completely and totally secure. It is not reliant on China for its security, SK is completely reliant on the US. - as the EU put it “this is the essence of vassalisation”.
The article linked is by two employees of a single EU institution
Mate. Let me give you a list of what funds this institute. I also STRONGLY urge you to learn more about it. It’s one of the core policy tanks of europe. I’ll put this in page breaks since it’ll be long.
Funded by:
Agence Française de Développement,
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ),
Direction générale des relations internationales et de la stratégie (DGRIS),
Embassy of Lithuania in France,
Embassy of Poland in France,
Embassy of Romania in France,
Embassy of the Netherlands in Italy,
European External Action Service (EEAS),
European Investment Bank,
European Parliament,
JETRO,
Ministry of Defense Germany,
Ministry of Economy of France,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belgium,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ireland,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic,
Secrétariat Général de la Défense et de la Sécurité Nationale (SGDSN),
Swedish International Development Agency
Thirdly, you don’t have to be on the FSBs payroll to be their asset. The Soviet Union was notorious for targeting western intellectuals with propaganda to get them to regurgitate it, then mockingly called them “useful idiots” behind their back. Modern day Russia has continued this trend, and I tend to regard anyone who invokes the spectre of nuclear annihilation a sucessfully demoralizred FSB asset. You are repeating talking points made in propaganda labs.
Yeah yeah, this is just backtracking. If it doesn’t get removed I’ll be surprised. That or the “piss off”. This isn’t reddit. Read the rules.
I hope you at least understand my position is logical and rational now. You can’t admit the EU has a vassalisation problem and then not look at several of the US’s “”“allies”“” and not see them as vassalised. The logic needs to be applied fairly to all things. In this case I think you’re just not wanting to admit that the US is an empire that has vassal states beneath it. Those 1000 foreign military bases are all just for funsies obviously. China has none btw. Russia has like, 20 I think? I don’t check too often. The US dwarves the entire rest of the world combined because this network of bases actively functions as a tool of the vassalisation it performs.
We’re arguing semantics now, and a propaganda term like “vassalization” is not conductive to a healthy debate. Have a nice day.
The entire conversation is about semantics. “Why are you calling NK an ally vs SK a vassal.”
You’re just running away at this point because you don’t have a response to the fundamental importance of this paper on vassalisation by the EU or the many EU officials that have publicly come out about the EU’s vassalisation. You are well aware that if you acknowledge this then you must also acknowledge that it logically applies to call weaker states in far worse off situations vassals as well.
The issue here is not that my logic is faulty. It is that you are dogmatic and don’t want to acknowledge that I have a pretty fair position here. Thus running away is the easiest option.
