By Ankit Panda
Are the United States and China on the same page regarding North Korea’s Byungjin line?
On Friday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that the United States and China are planning on discussing North Korea’s nuclear program when senior leaders from both sides meet for their annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) next week. Yonhap based its report off comments made by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel during a recent press briefing ahead of the S&ED.
Russel implicitly referenced a joint U.S.-China opposition to North Korea’s “Byungjin Line”—the country’s policy of pursuing the parallel goals of economic development and a robust nuclear weapons program. Russel referred to that policy as a “fantasy,” noting that Pyongyang couldn’t “have its cake and eat it too.” Yonhap, thus, chose to call this out in its headline: “U.S., China to discuss ways to get N. Korea out of ‘fantasy’ of ‘byeongjin’ policy.” Russel notes that the United States and China will:
…accelerate the realization on the part of North Korea’s leadership that negotiations to end their nuclear program are the only path available to them that allows for economic growth. And that’s what we will discuss [at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue].
Read the full story at The Diplomat