With tensions rising between Washington and Pyongyang, North Korea’s neighbors are finding diminishing room for diplomacy.
SEOUL, South Korea — Over the years, as North Korea raced to build a nuclear arsenal, the world has often turned to its neighbors for help: China, because of its economic leverage over the North, and South Korea, because it would suffer the most in any military confrontation.
Now, with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, engaged in a dangerous war of words with President Trump, China and South Korea have been left squirming on the sidelines, with Mr. Kim having been essentially granted his wish: dealing directly with the United States, which Pyongyang believes has the most to give.
To the North Koreans, the United States can offer a peace treaty, diplomatic recognition, the easing of decades-old sanctions and the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea, which Pyongyang considers its existential threat.
Since Mr. Kim came to power nearly six years ago, North Korea has accelerated its nuclear and missile tests to grab Washington’s attention and to force negotiations on terms favorable to Pyongyang, according to South Korean intelligence officials and analysts who study Mr. Kim’s motives.
When Mr. Trump threatened on Tuesday to “ totally destroy ” North Korea, it gave Mr. Kim a perfect chance to square off directly against the United States, they said. In an unprecedented personal statement on Friday, Mr. Kim called Mr. Trump a “ mentally deranged U. S. dotard ” and the North Korean foreign minister raised the prospect of exploding a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific.
To back up such talk, Mr. Kim will probably carry out more weapons tests, analysts said.
Further raising jitters on Saturday was a tremor detected near North Korea’s underground nuclear-testing site. It raised fears of another detonation, but South Korea’s meteorological administration said it appeared to have been a natural earthquake.
“We now can’t avoid the military tensions on the Korean Peninsula further escalating,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute, a research think tank outside the South Korean capital, Seoul. “Part of the reason that the standoff between North Korea and the United States is intensifying is that South Korea lacks capabilities to confront North Korea while the North ignores the South and insists on dealing only with the United States.”
As the crisis spiraled over the last few days, China found itself a bystander — an uncomfortable role for President Xi Jinping, who was most likely seething about Mr. Kim and about the North Korean government’s criticism of China’s most vaunted institution, the Communist Party, as its leadership prepares to meet, analysts said. The Korean Central News Agency, which is run by Pyongyang, referred to a coming party congress in Beijing in unflattering terms on Friday.
The quiet in Beijing illustrated China’s almost complete lack of influence in controlling its estranged ally and its unsuccessful efforts to persuade Mr.
