The CCP Controls Kim Jong-un to Undermine North Korea’s Denuclearization Efforts

According to a report on July 13, on Wednesday, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Chinese Communist Party has significant influence over North Korea and that Xi Jinping has blocked Washington’s efforts to make progress on denuclearization.

At the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul, Pompeo said, “The Chinese Communist Party is controlling what Kim Jong-un does, and his freedom is greatly limited” and that Beijing does not want Pyongyang to be denuclearized because the CCP benefits from continued possession of nuclear weapons.

Pompeo noted, “The Chinese Communist Party understands that North Korea is an important buffer for them, which distracts the United States, and they know that we have to spend resources to fend off North Korea’s nuclear weapons system.” He disclosed that Xi Jinping directly interfered in the diplomatic process between the United States and North Korea. “Not a single one of the meetings that I had with Chairman Kim, nor any meeting that President Trump had with Chairman Kim was not preceded by [Kim] meeting with Xi Jinping,” Pompeo said, “There were times I had serious conversations with Chairman Kim only to find that right after my departure, a call from Xi Jinping came in and said: ‘Don’t you dare head down that path with that Secretary of State.’”

“There were many times that I was convinced that Chairman Kim himself believed that the right path forward was the one that we were offering, but that it was in fact Xi Jinping that was operating him,” Pompeo said. “In some ways, you can look at the North Korean nuclear weapons as simply an extension of the Chinese nuclear weapons program.”

Pompeo did not say where the intelligence came from Xi’s phone calls.

Meanwhile, at the Asian leaders’ meeting, Pompeo called for greater sanctions against North Korea, forcing Kim Jong-un to intervene in denuclearization. He praised the recently inaugurated South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol for taking a tougher stance on Pyongyang than his predecessor, Moon Jae-in.