North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi before their bilateral meeting at the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Manila. Credit:AP Wang, however, added: "Of course, we would like to urge other parties like the US and South Korea to stop increasing tensions." Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Manila on Saturday night in what State Department officials have said will be a concerted effort to enlist other countries in the campaign to get North Korea to abandon its missile and nuclear tests. Concern has mounted that North Korea is developing its missile technology faster than expected, after tests last month of missiles that experts said are capable of striking the US mainland, perhaps as far inland as Chicago. "Certainly we want to resolve this issue through negotiations, and this pressure campaign, the sanctions, it's all about trying to convince the North Koreans that the fast way forward is to come back to the table and talk," said Susan Thornton, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Manila for the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting. Credit:AP But Tillerson has also stated several times that the United States does not seek regime change or a rapid reunification of the two Koreas, which have been in a state of suspended hostility since an armistice was declared in 1953. On Sunday, he declared the latest UN sanctions a "good outcome." Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks to journalists at the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Manila on Sunday. Credit:AP That prompted South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha to correct him slightly: "It was a very, very good outcome," she said.

South Korean officials told reporters after the meeting said that Kang and Tillerson had agreed to pursue the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula through peaceful measures. But the diplomatic road ahead is rocky. US officials rejected Beijing's call for the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for the United States and South Korea suspending joint military exercises, which Pyongyang considers a prelude to an invasion and regime change. "This kind of moral equivalency that's implied by the freeze for freeze, which is between the North Koreans shooting off missiles that are prohibited and our reasonably defensive exercises that we undertake in our alliance with the South Koreans to protect them from these launches, is not a reasonable kind of a trade," Thornton said. Thornton also said that the United States would be "watchful" to ensure that China did not slip from its adherence to the new sanctions, which she characterised as the strongest in a generation.

"We want to make sure China is continuing to implement fully the sanctions regime – not this kind of episodic back and forth that we've seen," she said. The United States has unsuccessfully lobbied for the 27 members of the ASEAN Regional Forum to suspend North Korea's membership. The response has been polite but non-commital. US officials have been adamant there will be no direct meetings with North Koreans in Manila, even among lower-level officials. Tillerson met for about an hour with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. They smiled amiably and made small talk but ignored a reporter's question about how the fresh US sanctions against Russia that President Donald Trump signed last week would affect their talks. Lavrov told reporters that he believed the United States would continue a dialogue with Russia despite what both sides have described as the worst tensions since the Cold War ended.

"We felt the readiness of our US colleagues to continue dialogue," Lavrov said. "I think there's no alternative to that." The ASEAN conference also addressed other issues of regional concern. Delegates are working to establish the framework for a code of conduct in the South China Sea that would reaffirm respect for the freedom of navigation and overflight, and outline how to arbitrate disputes. The demands that China stop expanding and reinforcing man-made islands in the sea, however, have been watered down from a year ago as more pressing demands have risen to the forefront. The United States is particularly concerned about Islamist militants gaining a foothold in the Philippines, after being pushed out of Syria and Iraq. The Philippine military is fighting militants who claim to be affiliated with the Islamic State militant group in Marawi City in the southern part of the country.

Tillerson started the day on a sombre note when he visited the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, where 17,000 American and Philippine troops who fought in the Pacific during World War II are buried. Loading After touring the site and walking past large stone slabs inscribed with the names of more than 36,000 men and women missing in action in the theatre between 1941 and 1945, Tillerson signed a visitors' book, adding after his signature, "Let us never forget – FREEDOM." Washington Post