Tillerson to discuss North Korea in China

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on Saturday. It is the secretary of state's second visit in office to the world's second-largest economy.

US President Donald Trump, who will travel to Asia in November, has repeatedly urged China to exert more pressure on North Korea, one of its regional allies, to convince the Kim Jong Un regime to reverse its nuclear and missile programs.

Pyongyang has conducted six nuclear tests to date and 15 missile launches this year alone, which experts say demonstrates the regime has a viable nuclear capability.

China, North Korea's main trading partner, has backed UN sanctions on its ally. On Thursday, the Chinese government announced that North Korean companies must close their operations in China by January in line with the latest round of international penalties.

Ahead of Tillerson's Saturday trip, Susan Thornton, the acting US assistant secretary for East Asia, told US lawmakers that US-China cooperation over North Korea was increasing.

"We are working closely with China to execute this strategy and are clear-eyed in viewing the progress — growing, if uneven — that China has made on this front," she said.

"We have recently seen Chinese authorities take additional actions," Thornton added.

A delicate line

Trump has threatened to use military force against Pyongyang if the conflict accelerates.

"The United States has great strength and patience but if forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," Trump said to the UN General Assembly last week.

In a display of military strength, US bombers and fighter escorts flew over North Korea last week. The planes flew to the farthest point north of the border between North and South Korea by any such US aircraft this century, the Pentagon said, adding that the mission showed "how seriously President Donald Trump takes North Korea's reckless behavior."

Read more: Donald Trump orders sweeping new travel ban, including N. Korea

Beijing appears to toe a delicate line between pressuring Pyongyang while at the same time avoiding any situation that would threaten the North Korean stability. China claims negotiations are the only workable solution to the crisis.

"China doesn't want the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) to collapse because that would leave many uncertainties regarding its weapons, refugees and a US base at its doorstep," Eduardo Araral, vice dean of research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, told DW.

Araral added that the US would not be able to handle North Korea without cooperation from China. "US-China ties are so intertwined that the US cannot continue hurting China, for example on trade, without hurting itself," he said.

Read more: Why China won't help US against North Korea

One of the major hurdles in preventing a united front from the US and China in dealing with the Kim regime is the uncertainty of the geopolitical outcome on the Korean Peninsula if the North were to collapse and be folded into the South.

US and Chinese interests do merge, however, in that both do not want a nuclear-ready North Korean military machine, and China especially does not want a nuclear war in its backyard.

Read more: North Korea nuclear 'blackmail' aimed at direct US talks