Clinton to meet Hong Kong, mainland officials

HONG KONG — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet officials in Hong Kong and mainland China Monday as she wraps up a series of Asian talks that touched on North Korea and South China Sea tensions.

Clinton is set to meet with Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang and city legislators before delivering a speech “underscoring US economic leadership in the Asia-Pacific” at the American Chamber of Commerce.

The top US diplomat will then head across the southern Chinese city’s border for talks with officials in the boom town of Shenzhen, considered the heartland of the country’s industrial machine.

Her visit comes as Beijing and Washington continue sparring over their increasing economic integration, with the US leading calls for China to boost the value of its currency, the yuan, which critics argue is artificially undervalued to make China’s exports cheaper.

Beijing, meanwhile, has called for the lifting of US export and investment controls directed against China, arguing move could help conquer the steep trade imbalance between the two powers.

Clinton’s China visit comes after she attended a series of meetings from Thursday on the Indonesian island of Bali culminating in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum security dialogue.

In a sign that stalled talks with North Korea may restart, Clinton invited a top North Korean envoy to New York for “exploratory talks” on the possible resumption of the six-party negotiations on denuclearisation.

The US Secretary of State said on Sunday the North’s vice foreign minister and former nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-Gwan, would visit the US at the “end of next week”.

That revelation came after envoys from North and South Korea held unexpected talks Friday, on the sidelines of the Asian security forum.

Clinton said she was “encouraged” by the talks, but warned that the US was not ready to offer new concessions to re-start the stalled negotiations.

The six-nation talks involve the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia. The last round ended in a stalemate in December 2008.

Clinton also said rising tensions in the South China Sea threatened regional peace, warning against using force in a region considered to be rich in oil and gas deposits — and one of Asia’s potential military flashpoints.

China claims all of the West Philippine Sea also known as South China Sea, where shipping lanes link East Asia with Europe and the Middle East.

But the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims to parts of the sea, and the decades-long dispute has intensified in recent months amid complaints of increased Chinese aggression in the waters.

The Philippines and Vietnam have accused China of acts such as harassing oil exploration vessels, shooting or beating up their fisherman, and placing territorial markers on islets in the sea.