President Trump said he is considering ’severe‘ options after North Korea tested an ICBM to hit a U. S. city. Pyongyang and China have options too.
President Trump said Thursday he is considering “severe” options in response to North Korea’s first test of a long-range missile. China and Russia oppose tough action, urging talks instead to resolve tensions.
Nikki Haley, the U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Wednesday the U. S. administration has considerable military capabilities but prefers “not to go in that direction.“
Here are several options Trump can choose to pressure North Korea to halt its weapons programs and prompt China to seek the same goal.
North Korea could be a year or less away from being able to place a miniaturized nuclear warhead on a missile that can hit a major U. S. city, said Gordon Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown, North Korea takes on the world .
Given the shortened time frame, the U. S. could bar from the U. S. financial system a major Chinese bank that participated in a money laundering scheme to help finance North Korea’s weapons development, Chang said.
According to the U. N. Panel of Experts on North Korea, the Bank of China allowed a shipping firm, Chinpo Shipping, to use its bank accounts in Singapore from 2009 to 2013 to process more than $40 million through the U. S. financial system for North Korea.
“The fact that Chinese banks have been able to conduct criminal activity and get away with it is a scandal, ” Chang said.
China might try to respond, but it would suffer more than the U. S. if the two countries engaged in a trade war, Chang said.
“The global markets might be shocked. The Chinese might try to retaliate. But we don’ t need to be terribly concerned, ” he said. “We don’ t have an economy geared to selling things to China. The Chinese have an economy geared to sell things to us. They do not have the means to win a trade war.”
Scott Snyder, director of the Program on U. S.-Korea Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, recommended focusing on Chinese banks with a more gradual approach to prevent uncontrollable ripple effects.
The U. S. and its allies could ramp up the interdiction of North Korean and North Korea-linked ships suspected of carrying weapons for sale abroad, Chang said.
Sales of weapons and military technology to Iran, and countries in south Asia and Africa are among North Korea’s main sources of income. “They’ ve been selling all sorts of missiles to Iran, ” Chang said.
Since the U. S. and North Korea are still technically in a state of war since 1953, when the Korean conflict ended without a peace accord, “there’s no agreement not to use force, ” he said. “We can stop North Korea’s illegal trade in weapons.“
Chris Hill, who led the U. S. delegation in 2005 for the “six-party talks” with North Korea, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, said North Korea would consider such a move an act of war, and its response would be unpredictable.
“The North Koreans might retaliate militarily, ” Hill said. “Their options are most opaque.”
Snyder said such action is permissible under U. N. Security Council resolutions, which bar North Korea from testing or selling missiles.
“It is a type of response that has military applications but is not a military response, ” Snyder said. As a result, it probably wouldn’t trigger the same type of escalation as a U. S. missile strike on a North Korean launch site, he said.
The U. S. and its allies could issue arrest warrants for Chinese nationals who participate in military assistance programs that benefit North Korea.
“We have to use all our efforts short of military force to stop North Korea, ” Chang said. “I believe China is not exceptional and will change its behavior in the face of overwhelming pressure.” said Richard Fisher, a China and Korea analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
“We have to use all our efforts short of military force to stop North Korea, ” Chang said. “I believe China is not exceptional and will change its behavior in the face of overwhelming pressure.”
Some analysts argue for peace talks, saying Trump’s efforts to pressure China to force a halt to North Korea’s weapons program is misguided because China does not share the same goal. China is worried about a large U. S. military presence in the region, including 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea., and instability on its border if the regime of Kim Jong Un collapses.
China has repeatedly shown that it will only go so far to cut off trade with North Korea, “out of concerns of retaliation or causing instability” on its border with North Korea, said Jenny Town, assistant director of the U. S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
“Continuing to believe that we can change China’s strategic calculus (force China to) choose us over what it sees as a matter of regional stability has been a losing battle from the start, ” Town said. “Pushing harder is likely going to backfire and cause more tensions between the U. S. and China.”
Chang said a new round of peace talks is dangerous because North Korea used prior agreements reached with two U. S. presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, as delaying tactics to further its nuclear weapons program. It reneged on both deals.
Hill, who was involved in those talks under then-President Clinton, said the North Koreans “have shown no interest in denuclearization, which is always the purpose of talks.”
“They would like disarmament talks, where we would talk about disarming our strategic systems. That would be a non-starter, ” Hill said.
Town said the U. S.’ “sanctions-only approach” has already led to a more provocative North Korea, and given it time to accelerate its weapons development.
“If we can’ t ‘live with’ this more provocative North Korea… then we really have two major options: negotiations or military actions, ” she said.
John Bolton, the U. S. ambassador to the U. N. under President George W. Bush, said China’s decades of mixed signals about North Korea “reflect its uncertainty about exactly what to do with the North.”
And sanctioning China might only strengthen the hand of Beijing’s pro-North Korean faction, Bolton wrote Thursday in the New York Post .
Instead, “China must be made to understand that, unless the threat is eliminated by reunifying the (Korean) Peninsula, the U. S. will do whatever is necessary to protect innocent American civilians from the threat of nuclear blackmail, ” he said.
