WASHINGTON — A former senior U.S. government official said no new developments on North Korea are likely to emerge from the U.S.-China summit expected in Washington on the 24th local time.
Meeting with U.S. and foreign reporters in Washington on the 16th local time, the former official said China wants to prevent North Korea from drifting into the U.S. sphere of influence. "President Donald Trump would want to meet Chairman Kim Jong-un and reach some form of agreement, but China does not support that," the former official said. "Of course, both leaders will say all the right things about denuclearization, but in reality their strategic interests are diverging. China will try to pull North Korea closer to itself, including by drawing it away from Russia." The assessment suggests Chinese President Xi Jinping is seeking to pull North Korea toward China and does not want U.S.-North Korea contact, leaving little prospect of any meaningful agreement on the North.
The summit was also described as a kind of show rather than a conventional meeting that produces concrete results. A second former senior U.S. official said the event is closer to a spectacle than a summit and is designed to draw public attention. Meaningful outcomes on the overall U.S.-China relationship, technology or trade would require active working-level consultations ahead of the meeting, and none have taken place, the second former official said. Within the Trump administration in particular, China hawks coexist with those seeking to make money through business with China, making it difficult even to form a unified U.S. position on the country.
The first former official said the summit is unlikely to produce new initiatives or a set of measures, and that an extension of the tariff truce agreed at the U.S.-China summit in Busan last November is about the extent of what can be expected.
Calls have grown in the United States recently for slowing the development of artificial intelligence on grounds that it could threaten humanity, along with demands that Washington discuss the issue with Beijing. But the first former official said such talks would not come easily, given China's past posture. "Based on decades of experience negotiating with China, most Chinese officials are deeply wary of getting drawn into any kind of binding relationship with the United States," the first former official said, adding that even those within the Chinese government who could serve as partners for cooperation harbor profound distrust of the United States.
