China has stressed the need to seek dialogue with North Korea instead of sanctions and pressure in order to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
 
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday called for the resumption of dialogue with Pyongyang while denouncing the North’s launch of a ballistic missile that flew over Japan’s airspace on Tuesday.
 
Wang made the remark during a briefing held in advance of the BRICS Summit which will open in Xiamen, China next week.  
 
Chinese state-run media and academics have also called on Washington and Pyongyang to engage in dialogue without conditions.
 
They claimed that it would be difficult for South Korea, the U.S. and Japan to deal a blow to the North with additional sanctions as the communist state has nothing more to lose. They also claimed that the U.S. must help the Kim Jong-un government find an alternative other than nuclear weapons with which it can feel reassured.
 
The Global Times under the People’s Daily said that applying fresh sanctions on the North when strong sanctions are already in place would be like squeezing one or two drops of water out of a nearly dry towel.
 
The paper said that the North is aiming to change the international community’s attitude toward Pyongyang by accelerating missile launches. It added that the North’s missile launches have become an unstoppable inertia and Pyongyang has become numb to outside pressure.
 
In an article contributed to the Global Times, Kang Jie, an assistant research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, said the U.S. and the North must stop playing with fire.
 
Kang said that “in just half a month, the two sides have found themselves caught up in a vicious cycle that seemingly has no end in sight.” He then urged Washington and Pyongyang to “reduce their military drills and nuclear tests respectively to help ease tensions.”

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