Joe Biden in sights of North Korea after criticising Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un relationship
"Trump got played by Kim Jong Un — again"
Posted about 10 hours ago
Photo: Mr Biden took aim at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a campaign rally on Saturday. (Reuters: Jonathan Ernst)
North Korean state media has slammed Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden for criticising leader Kim Jong-un, calling him "bereft of elementary quality as a human being".
Xi Jinping Will Make First Visit to North Korea Ahead of Meeting With Trump
"Trump got played by Kim Jong Un — again"
Will Xi salvage something from Trump's failure with Kim so far? Or sideline him?
Kim Jong-un, right, has visited China four times in the past 15 months, including this visit with President Xi Jinping in Beijing in January. Huang Jingwen/Xinhua, via Associated Press
By Jane Perlez and Mark Landler
June 17, 2019
BEIJING — President Xi Jinping of China plans to make his first state visit to North Korea this week, a surprise move that could rattle his relationship with President Trump, who has twice met the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and made his nuclear diplomacy with Mr. Kim a signature foreign policy project.
Mr. Kim has traveled to China four times in the past 15 months to confer with the Chinese president. But Mr. Xi, 66, who is one of the most traveled Chinese leaders, had been reluctant to reciprocate before now, depriving the 35-year-old Mr. Kim of the prestige of playing host to his most powerful neighbor.
By going to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, Mr. Xi is injecting himself into the middle of Mr. Trump’s negotiating efforts, which have languished since February when he and Mr. Kim failed to agree on a disarmament deal in Hanoi, Vietnam. Several analysts said they expected Mr. Xi to try to revive those talks during his two-day visit, on Thursday and Friday.
He could then deliver a plan for the next phase of the nuclear negotiations to Mr. Trump in Osaka, Japan, where he and the American president are expected to meet on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit meeting.
That would be a “beautiful present” to Mr. Trump, said Cheng Xiaohe, a North Korea expert at Renmin University in Beijing, given the tensions between the United States and China over trade and the American actions against the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. It would also be a distraction from large demonstrations in Hong Kong .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/world/asia/hong-kong-china-protests.html?module=inline , which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Mr. Trump would raise with Mr. Xi when they meet.
But Mr. Xi’s move also risks sidelining Mr. Trump in the diplomatic undertaking that he views as one of his biggest potential legacies. And it suggests the Chinese leader is willing to strike out on his own, both in his own neighborhood and with leaders in Russia, India and other countries, as China’s broader relationship with the United States continues to fray.
“The Chinese have held off for months on Xi traveling to North Korea because it’s such a strong signal of China’s geopolitical orientation,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a former China adviser to President Barack Obama. “It signals that China has essentially given up on having a stable, mutually beneficial relationship with Trump.”
Even the meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi in Osaka is not yet nailed down.
Trump is the kind of guy who while attempting chess would insist on the right to move a pawn never less than two spaces straight ahead at a time. How do you have a stable relationship with that?
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