US President Donald Trump has said that he would be “honoured” to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, with whom tensions have been rising recently. China has a huge role in this conflict, since they’re the mediator between the United States and North Korea. North Korea is a client of China, and Xi Jinping, the President of China, has supposedly been developing quite the friendship with Donald Trump, if that can be believed. They’ve had their problems in the past – for example, Trump called China a “currency manipulator” and then later said that he would never do that, having already done it – but they seem to have found common ground with the North Korea crisis.
This is just a few days after Kim, according to Trump, ‘disrespected China’
China threatened Kim they would be taking punitive measures if he continued testing missiles, and then Kim went and tested a missile anyway (and failed miserably). Trump denounced Kim after the test for “disrespect(ing) China.” Today, a Chinese official spoken out about Trump’s mention of a potential meeting with Kim Jong-un.
The official said that “dialogue and construction” (i.e. a meeting between Trump and Kim) is “the only feasible way” towards denuclearising North Korea and bringing “peace and stability” to the nation. Geng Shuang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman for China, added that this would be “the only correct choice” for dealing with the crisis, and that all sides of the conflict need to “find a breakthrough in the resumption of peace talks as soon as possible.”