WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, emphasising the importance of “sustained... trilateral cooperation” ahead of his visit to China, the State Department said on Saturday.

The conversations also come as North Korea stepped up missile launches in the past year, and Tokyo is contending with growing pressure from Chinese vessels around islands contested with Beijing.

Mr Blinken on Friday reassured Foreign Minister Park Jin of the United States’ “ironclad commitment” to South Korea’s defence, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement on Saturday.

“The Secretary and the Foreign Minister condemned the DPRK’s (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) continued unlawful ballistic missile launches and noted the need for the PRC (People’s Republic of China) to use its influence to encourage Pyongyang to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy,” he added, using abbreviations for North Korea and China’s official names.

Mr Blinken repeated the “ironclad commitment” to defence to Japan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi, and “condemned the DPRK’s continued unlawful ballistic missile launches into the Sea of Japan”.

The three countries issued a joint statement on Thursday to condemn North Korea’s launch of two short-range ballistic missiles, shortly after Pyongyang warned of an “inevitable” response to ongoing US-South Korea joint military drills.

In 2022, Tokyo unveiled a major defence overhaul, pledging to boost security spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product by 2027 and calling China the “greatest strategic challenge ever” for Japan.

The trilateral statement reflected the growing thaw between Japan and South Korea – a major foreign policy goal of US President Joe Biden’s administration amid tensions in the region and China’s growing influence.

Mr Blinken also told Mr Park, though not Mr Hayashi, of the US pledge to “responsibly manage the US-PRC relationship”.

Mr Blinken arrived in China on Sunday, in the first trip by a top US diplomat in nearly five years.

The visit was rescheduled after a planned trip to Beijing in February was cancelled when Washington said it detected – and later shot down – a Chinese spy balloon.

President Biden told reporters on Saturday morning that he also hoped to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping over the next few months, to talk about “legitimate differences we have but also how… to get along”. AFP