America’s Twitter-in-chief, President Donald Trump, has unleashed on China his frustrations with the Little Rocket Man in North Korea.
In a new series of tweets today, in which he also attacked New York Times, Trump railed on why a recent visit to North Korea by a Chinese envoy failed to dissuade Kim Jong Un from embarking on another missile test.
Song Tao, a special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, met in Pyongyang with senior North Korean officials last week, days before North Korea tested another ICBM that could carry a nuclear warhead and hit any US city, was tested.
Trump had always insisted that China should be able to rein in the North Korean leader, whose country he had vowed America would destroy.
It was not clear why Trump tweet came out just after Xinhua published the photograph ofWednesday’s meeting in Beijing between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
The two leaders had reviewed relations between the two countries and called for enhanced communication, exchanges and cooperation between them.
Xi also made a positive appraisal of Obama’s efforts in promoting China-U.S. relations during his presidency.
On Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country had achieved full nuclear statehood after successfully testing a new missile capable of hitting anywhere in the United States.
The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch snapped a two-month pause in testing by the North and poses a new challenge to US President Donald Trump who has vowed such a capability “won’t happen.”
North Korean state television brought out Ri Chun-Hee, a senior broadcaster who only appears for significant developments, to announce the landmark.
“Kim Jong Un declared with pride that now we have finally realised the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force, the cause of building a rocket power,” she said.
READ ALSO: JUST IN: Jordan: Buhari participates in counter-terrorism meeting
“The great success in the test-fire of Hwasong-15 is a priceless victory won by the great and heroic people of the DPRK,” she said, using the official abbreviated name for North Korea.
Wednesday’s missile was more sophisticated than any previously tested, state media said.
“The ICBM Hwasong-15 type weaponry system is an intercontinental ballistic rocket tipped with super-large heavy warhead which is capable of striking the whole mainland of the US,” the official news agency KCNA said.
Pyongyang said the missile reached an altitude of 4,475 kilometres (2,800 miles) and had splashed down 950 kilometres from its launch site.
At least one Western expert said the missile’s lofted trajectory suggested an actual range of 13,000 kilometres — longer than that of any previous test and one that would extend to every major US city.
Trump, who recently announced fresh sanctions on Pyongyang and returned it to a US list of state sponsors of terror, was opaque in his immediate response, as the UN Security Council agreed to meet in emergency session.
“I will only tell you that we will take care of it,” Trump said at the White House. “It is a situation that we will handle,” he added, without elaborating.
US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, stressed that diplomatic options to resolving the crisis remained “viable and open.”