"Mr.
President, this is obviously a critical time with some very challenging issues
- issues on the Korean peninsula, the challenge of Iran and nuclear weapons,
Syria and the Middle East, and economies around the world that are in need of a
boost," Kerry told Xi at the Great Hall of the People.
Earlier, Kerry met China's top leaders in an effort to
persuade them to exert pressure on North Korea to scale back its
belligerent rhetoric and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.
Traveling to Beijing for the
first time as secretary of state, Kerry made no secret of his desire to
see China take a more activist stance toward North Korea, which in
recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States.
As
the North's main trading partner, financial backer and the closest
thing it has to a diplomatic ally, China has a unique ability to use its
leverage against the impoverished, isolated state, Kerry said in the
South Korean capital Seoul late on Friday.
"There
is no group of leaders on the face of the planet who have more capacity
to make a difference in this than the Chinese, and everybody knows it,
including, I believe, them," Kerry told U.S. executives.
"They
want to see us try to reach an amicable resolution to this," he said.
"But you have to begin with a reality, and the reality is that if your
policy is denuclearization - and it is theirs as it is ours as it is
everybody's except the North's at this moment - if that's your policy,
you've got to put some teeth into it," he said.
Kerry
is scheduled to see the top echelon of China's leadership on Saturday,
including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor
Yang Jiechi, China's top diplomat who outranks Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
In
remarks before reporters at the first meeting, neither Kerry nor Wang
directly referred to North Korea, though the trip had "come at a
critical moment", Wang said.
"Obviously
there are enormously challenging issues in front of us and I look
forward to having that conversation with you today to do exactly what
you said - lift this conversation up, broaden it, set a roadmap, define
for both of us what the model relationship (would) be and how two great
powers, China and the United States, can work effectively to solve
problems," Kerry told Wang.
Kerry's
visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes
place against after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since
the imposition of new U.N. sanctions in response to its third nuclear
test in February.
North Korea has
repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it said on
Friday were its "treasured" guarantor of security.
REUTERS