White House Looks to China to Help Curb North Korean Nuclear Threat

The Biden administration is looking to partner with China to help contain the North Korean nuclear threat, Newsweek reports.

According to a senior administration official, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi met on Monday in Luxembourg for a ''candid, in-depth, substantive and productive'' discussion that lasted nearly five hours.

A readout of the call, supplied by the White House, offered little insight into the meeting, saying simply that the two men talked about ''a number of regional and global security issues, as well as key issues in U.S.-China relations.''

According to the readout, Sullivan ''underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to manage competition between our two countries.''

The administration official told Newsweek that areas of international affairs that were discussed by the two diplomats included the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Washington's ''Indo-Pacific'' strategy.

Sullivan ''raised concerns about Beijing's recent decision to veto a resolution at the U.N. Security Council amid North Korea's exploratory tests and indications that Pyongyang is preparing its nuclear test site for a possible weapons test,'' the official said.

Since conducting its first nuclear weapons test in 2006, North Korea has been under intense international sanctions, but the ruling Kim dynasty has continued testing nevertheless.

There have been five more tests over the years, with the most recent and most powerful conducted in 2017 under Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

While North Korea has yet to resume nuclear testing, it carried out its first intercontinental ballistic missile launch in almost five years in March, signifying the widest divergence yet from an unsuccessful peace process initiated by the United States and the two Koreas in 2018.

Though an ally of North Korea, China has typically been supportive of sanctions against the isolated Asian country, but the issue has been sidelined recently by a rising geopolitical rivalry between Washington and Beijing, according to Newsweek.

''I think that this scenario is one where the United States and China have had a history of cooperation, a history of [having the] ability to work together with aligned interests,'' the senior White House official told Newsweek. ''I think what I would say is that each side laid out their positions and the way we see the situation.''

''And certainly, Jake made very clear that we believe this is an area where the United States and China should be able to work together,'' the official added.

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