Soaring tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea’s recent successful ICBM test appear to have splintered any sense of unity between the US and China on approaching the issue, with both nations taking very different positions in hopes of resolving the situation.
The failure of months of threats by the US to prevent the launch have China once again convinced that diplomacy is the way to go, while US officials think it’s proof that they just haven’t been threatening North Korea enough, with the State Department complaining that China could stand to threaten North Korea a lot more too.
In particular, State Department officials criticized China for even bringing them a proposal that would see North Korea freeze its nuclear and missile testing in return for the US ending military exercises with South Korea, saying they “see no equivalence.”
Chinese officials, however, are increasingly vehement that the North Korea issue needs peaceful resolution, and that somewhere down the line that’s going to have to involve diplomacy. They’re always showing impatience with US bellicosity, warning the US not to use North Korea as an excuse to impose economic sanctions on China.
That appears to be a realistic concern, with Ambassador Nikki Haley suggesting that China is risking its entire $500+ billion annual trade with the US be continuing to trade in a limited fashion with North Korea.
“The way to go” to get where?
The US seeks regime change, the collapse of the North. That is the only way to ensure by force that the nuclear program will end. End the regime doing it.
China does not want the massive flow of refugees, nor the US on the Yalu. It has seen the massive flows of refugees in several recent countries, and is very realistic about the problems the US would dump on them. It has fought a difficult war on longer odds to keep the US back from the Yalu, and that has not changed.
So we can’t enlist them in diplomacy until we agree with them on what we really seek.
Once we agree, we’ll also need to give them something for their help. That is how these deals are always done. However, the US is pushing hard for containment and confrontation on all other issues and places, so there is no slack for giving anything.
THAT is why diplomacy has not yet worked.
Diplomacy has not yet worked, because the US has never really tried it…..
Stupid childish Muricans…. will these idiots ever grow up?
China is totally backing North Korea and does not want it to give up its nuclear ambitions.
China’s plan is working. It is making the US rethink its presence in the area and it’s also worrying the other nations in the area.
This is exactly what China wants – to intimidate and bully its neighbors.
This crisis is the fault of China and North Korea. Instead of diplomacy, they have chosen confrontation and threats. China is responsible for all that North Korea does. North Korea has been safe from invasion for decades. North Korea and China have instigated this crisis for their own reasons.
South Korea and Japan are being threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons, and so have every right to develop these weapons themselves.
North Korea is a piece of you-know-what.
Hah! I can just see the US dumping $500 billion in trade with China over North Korea. Not gonna happen. China makes almost everything the US buys these days. And China holds US debt that they can dump any time if trade is threatened, which would sink the US economy.