Tillerson to embark on tour to Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing this week

published: 2017-03-13 05:40:09 틸러슨 美국무 금주 한중일 3국 방문…북핵•사드 협의 U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will embark on his Asia trip this week to visit Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo. North Korea and the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea are set to top the agenda. Connie Kim tells us more. This week’s highly-anticipated trip to Northeast Asia will be Rex Tillerson’s first as U.S. Secretary of State. Tillerson arrives in Japan for a three-day trip on Wednesday. Leaving Tokyo, he’ll head to Seoul for two days from Friday,… then on to Beijing for two more days before heading back to Washington. Tillerson is expected to discuss pending issues surrounding the Korean peninsula, including North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, as well as the THAAD deployment to South Korea. While Tillerson is likely to emphasize the need to strengthen trilateral cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo, attention is mostly focused on his message to Beijing. Some believe Tillerson could bring up the issue of imposing secondary boycott sanctions on firms doing business with North Korea. Supporting such speculation, the United States recently fined China’s second largest telecoms equipment maker ZTE one-point-two billion U.S. dollars for breaking sanctions and selling electronics to Iran and North Korea. President Trump’s top diplomat will sit down with China’s President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi to explain the necessity of the THAAD deployment as Beijing has been taking economic retaliation measures against South Korea. With South Korean military pledging to swiftly complete the U.S-built missile defense system placement on the Korean peninsula, there is speculation the deployment will be completed by next month.

Connie Kim, Arirang News.