ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE - US President Joe Biden will warn Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting on Monday that North Korea’s continued pursuit of weapons development will lead to an enhanced US military presence in the region, the White House said.

The United States is concerned that North Korea plans to resume nuclear bomb testing for the first time since 2017 and believes China and Russia have the leverage to dissuade it from doing so.

Mr Biden and Mr Xi are set to hold their first face-to-face meeting as national leaders on the sidelines of a summit of the G-20 grouping of countries in the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Mr Biden would tell Mr Xi that North Korea represented a threat, not just to the US and its allies South Korea and Japan, but also to peace and stability across the entire region.

“If North Korea keeps going down this road, it will simply mean further enhanced American military and security presence in the region,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, as Mr Biden flew to Cambodia for regional meetings at the weekend.

“And so the People’s Republic of China has an interest in playing a constructive role in restraining North Korea’s worst tendencies,” Mr Sullivan added, using the country’s official name.

“Whether they choose to do so or not, is, of course, up to them.”

Mr Biden and Mr Xi have discussed North Korea many times, Mr Sullivan said, but the nation’s increased military activity has raised the stakes. It has launched more than 60 ballistic missiles so far in 2022, more than double the number in any year during Mr Kim Jong Un’s decade in power. 

“The operational situation is more acute in the current moment because of the pace of these missile tests, and because of the looming threat of a potential nuclear test, seventh nuclear test,” he said. “But the President sees this as quite familiar ground that he will be treading with President Xi when they meet in Bali.” 

While China and Russia backed toughened UN sanctions after North Korea’s last nuclear test in 2017, in May they vetoed a US-led push for more UN penalties over its renewed ballistic missile launches.

US officials have accused both countries of enabling Pyongyang’s missile and bomb programmes by failing to properly enforce UN Security Council sanctions.

Mr Daniel Russel, the senior US diplomat for East Asia under former president Barack Obama, said recently that China could eventually become a restraining factor.

This could happen if Beijing should feel its own security directly threatened, not only by North Korea’s capabilities, but also by the build-up of US and allied forces to meet those, he told Reuters.

“One could imagine, and I’m not taking a lot of consolation from this... that at some point, the ability of Kim to escalate will be impeded by China’s own national security interest,” he said.

“That’s cold comfort. And that’s not a strategy, but is there as a factor.”

On Saturday, Mr Biden held talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in Cambodia to discuss how to rein in North Korea’s nuclear programme.

Ahead of the meeting, Mr Sullivan said Mr Biden planned to preview with them the topics he plans to discuss with Mr Xi and would canvass the two leaders for issues they want him to raise.

US ties with China have since sunk to their lowest level in decades and a senior administration official has said the meeting aims to limit deterioration of ties, but will be honest about US concerns, such as Taiwan and human rights.

Mr Sullivan also said Mr Biden hoped his first face-to-face talks with Mr Xi would lead to more such meetings.

Mr Biden would seek a clarification of positions, he added.

“I think the President views this as not the end of the line, but rather the start of a series of engagements that will also include further leader-to-leader meetings down the road.”

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG