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US Officials Push China to Act on North Korea After Student's Death

by Joshua Fatzick

   WASHINGTON --

   The United States has urged China during high-level talks in Washington
   to put more pressure on North Korea to rein in that country's nuclear
   and missile programs.

   Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said after the meeting Wednesday that
   China had "a diplomatic responsibility to exert much greater economic
   and diplomatic pressure on the regime if they want to prevent further
   escalation in the region."

   North Korea topped the agenda at the talks after a U.S. student
   imprisoned by the communist country died this week. The talks included
   Tillerson and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis along with China's
   State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Army chief Fang Fenghui.

   Along with the North Korea threat, the diplomats also discussed
   Beijing's construction of man-made islands in the South China Sea that
   have caused issues with the U.S. and China's neighbors; military
   cooperation between the U.S. and China; and the fight against the
   Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

   President Donald Trump has lauded China's past efforts to rein in North
   Korea, but he acknowledged those efforts hadn't achieved their desired
   results in a tweet Wednesday, following the death of Otto Warmbier, 22,
   who had been held prisoner by North Korea for more than a year.

   "While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help
   with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!"
   Trump wrote.

   Warmbier died Monday after being detained in North Korea for nearly a
   year and a half.

   Mattis said Trump's comments reflect American frustration over the
   death of the U.S. student.

   "We see a young man go over there healthy and with a minor act of
   mischief come home dead. ... There's no way that we can look at a
   situation like this with any kind of understanding," he said.

   He said the North Korean government "provokes, provokes and provokes,
   and basically plays outside the rules, plays fast and loose with the
   truth."

   North Korea said Warmbier fell into a coma shortly after he was
   sentenced in March of last year for stealing a political poster from a
   hotel there. The government claimed the young man fell into a coma
   after contracting botulism and being given a sleeping pill.

   Trump called Otto's death a "total disgrace" and said the North Korean
   government was a brutal regime that doesn't "respect the rule of law or
   basic human decency."