A framework for new multilateral talks must be established.
The North Korean nuclear crisis is at its most severe and perplexing juncture. President Trump is pushing China to shoulder the burden to solve it as part of a deal entangling U. S.-China economic relations and regional geopolitics.
Trump is not wrong to put China on the spot as the enabler for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons development program, but the thinking and strategy behind his approach are gravely mistaken.
While China shares the strategic interest of a denuclearized North Korea, Beijing’s policy remains unchanged in wanting to avoid North Korean upheaval, an influx of migrants into China and U. S. troops occupying North Korea. In addition, Trump’s strategy encourages Chinese suspicions that American pressure is a calculated attempt to decisively degrade Beijing’s relations with North Korea. Consequently, a Trumpian boxing-in of North Korea via China is hard to imagine.
How have things come to this? The geopolitical dynamics of North-East Asia are characterized by mutual suspicions. This has long been true: George Alexander Lensen first pinpointed these continuing “ Balance of Intrigue ” dynamics in his aptly titled book about the Korean peninsula in the late 19th century. First, the U. S.-China relationship is permeated by a Cold War mentality of strategic distrust. U. S. perceptions are that China maintains a North Korean buffer state for leverage, while China believes the United States exploits North Korea as a pretext for missile-defense deployment in South Korea and Japan and for strengthening its alliance network to contain China.
Second, China-North Korea relations are at a historical low point. The assassination by North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un of his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, incensed China, which was seen as protecting him. The North’s continued missile tests have led China to cut off coal imports since February.
Third, heavy-handed economic sanctioning by China of South Korea in response to Seoul’s agreement to deploy the U.
