US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson talks with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha during the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula in Vancouver, Canada, January 16, 2018.  Photo: Reuters / Ben Nelms
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson talks with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha during the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula in Vancouver, Canada, January 16, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Ben Nelms

As the US and Canada pledge to step up enforcement of sanctions against North Korea, along with a host of countries that convened in Vancouver on Tuesday, they will be doing so without two important voices.

Notably, China and Russia were absent from the summit, raising the question: What good can come from it?

China’s answer: Nothing.

“The US and Canada, as the initiators of the summit, [are] using so-called ‘United Nations Force’ participating countries as a pretense for organizing the meeting is clearly cold war mentality,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a regular press briefing on Wednesday.

“It will only create divisions in the international community,” he added, according to the transcript posted on the ministry’s website.

“The channels for dealing with and resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue are still the six-party dialogue framework and the United Nations Security Council,” Lu said.

“Because of this, from the start, the legality and authority of this [Vancouver] meeting have met widespread skepticism from the international community.”

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