The solution involves realistic goals, trust building, and the willingness to walk away.<\/b>
\nAfter the rose-colored summit in Singapore between U. S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, reality is starting to set in. During meetings with North Korean leadership in Pyongyang, U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was accused by Kim\u2019s minions of using \u201cgangster-like\u201d tactics. This controversy was preceded by news that North Korea is ramping up its missile production.
The actual Korean word leveled against Pompeo better-translates into English as \u201crobber,\u201d meaning that North Korea believes the United States is demanding that Kim give up his crown-jewels \u2014 nuclear weapons \u2014 immediately, and before the U. S. has provided any concessions. The Trump administration, of course, fears making the same mistake as its predecessors: Providing concessions and economic aid only to watch the North Koreans walk away without fulfilling their end of the bargain. In other words, mutual trust remains low.
But there is an even bigger hurdle faced by the Trump administration. North Korea denuclearizing was always highly unlikely, but any meaningful deal between North Korea and the U. S. that leads to better relations \u2014 even just securing stockpiles and reduced quantities of missiles \u2014 is likely to be hindered by China. For a time, Beijing cooperated with America\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d sanctions. But now China is loosening enforcement at the North Korean-Chinese border and granting the Kim regime much-needed access to foreign currency. This strengthens North Korea\u2019s negotiating position against America.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made a similar point in a Sunday morning interview, where he claimed that China\u2019s renewed aid to the Kim regime was a negotiating chip in Beijing\u2019s trade dispute with the United States. Trump followed up on Monday with a tweet that echoed Graham\u2019s sentiment. But Trump and Graham are only half right. There is more to the story than the Sino-American trade dispute, and in search of a workaround to China\u2019s loosening of sanctions, it is important to fully understand why Beijing is log-jamming.
Chinese Easing of Sanctions on North Korea Isn\u2019t About Trade
The real driving force behind China\u2019s overtures to Pyongyang has to do with China\u2019s fear of a unified Korean Peninsula, or of a non-isolated North Korea that has working relations with China\u2019s strategic adversaries, especially the United States. This has nothing to do with the trade dispute. In fact, trade tensions were subdued when China was cooperating on North Korea, and China stopped implementing \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d before Sino-American trade relations subsequently deteriorated.
Just look at the timeline, starting right before the Singapore summit was about to take place: Strict penalties on ZTE \u2014 a Chinese telecommunications company that disregarded U. S. sanctions on Iran \u2014 were being rolled back by the White House. In exchange for ZTE\u2019s pardon \u2014 and in a bid to hold off U. S. tariffs \u2014 China\u2019s regulators promised to approve a merger they had been holding up between NXP Semiconductors and Qualcomm, China made a vague promise to purchase more American agriculture products and natural gas, and China reduced tariffs on U. S. auto imports from 25 percent to 15 percent. China didn\u2019t budge on its Made in China 2025 industrial policy and forced technology transfer, but there was progress.
That d\u00e9tente was short-lived. Immediately after the Singapore summit took place, China signaled it would ease back \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d on North Korea. This was in direct contradiction to the U. S. denuclearization roadmap. Indeed, there is evidence that China had already begun to remove sanctions in the weeks prior to the summit. And only days after the summit, China\u2019s President Xi Jinping hosted Kim in Beijing, where the two leaders predictably focused on sanctions relief.
Now that China has reduced \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d on North Korea, Washington has ratcheted trade tensions back up. The United States imposed a 25 percent tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports. China reciprocated. The momentarily-lowered tax China places on U. S. autos went from 15 percent to 40 percent. In other words, it is just as likely that the U. S. is using trade as a bargaining chip to coax China into maintaining \u201cmaximum pressure.\u201d
C hina Fears a North Korea Outside Its Orbit
But if Trump uses the trade dispute as a bargaining chip to re-engage \u201cmaximum pressure,\u201d China \u2014 for geopolitical reasons that supersede the threat of tariffs \u2014 will constantly look for ways to keep North Korea well away from Washington. China surely doesn\u2019t want North Korea to possess nuclear weapons, but the Chinese fear U. S. influence in North Korea even more.
That\u2019s a major reason why no president before Trump could get China to cooperate on tough sanctions. The prospect of a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula and a bordering state that wasn\u2019t drunk on petulance \u2014 attractive as this was for China \u2014 didn\u2019t outweigh the risk of increased U. S. influence. But Trump is different than his predecessors. He has a new bargaining chip no other president possessed. Trump is a trade hawk (protectionist) like nothing Beijing has ever seen, and his sincerity in that regard cannot be doubted.
Under threat of a crackdown on China\u2019s export-machine, Beijing went along with Trump\u2019s maximum pressure plan. But that put China in an awkward position. China became the \u201cbad cop,\u201d imposing tough sanctions, while the United States \u2014 in Trumpian fashion \u2014 was promising to make North Korea rich. China holds the stick, and the U. S. holds the carrot. This situation was, and is, undesirable for China. Because North Korea borders China, it will work against any pivot by North Korea toward the United States.
And China has good reason to believe Kim would make a modest pivot if the price were right \u2014 not to being a U. S. ally, of course, but at least away from China and toward the rest of the world \u2014 given the deficiency of trust between China and North Korea. Some of this stems from ancient history. And Kim\u2019s 2013 purge of the pro-China faction within his government surely doesn\u2019t help. This purge famously included the execution of Kim\u2019s uncle Jang\u00a0Song Thaek, a highly influential Chinese ally, with an anti-aircraft gun.
How to Work Around China\u2019s Log-jamming
Working around China first requires the Trump administration to have realistic expectations. It is highly unlikely that North Korea will give up all of its nuclear weapons. Significant resources and several decades have gone into making North Korea a nuclear power, and Kim will be hard-pressed to give up his ultimate insurance policy against the threat of regime change. Because of this, the Trump administration should recognize that an arms-reduction and nonproliferation deal \u2014 and the normalization of relations between North Korea and the West \u2014 is a strategic victory in its own right. A nuclear North Korea is China\u2019s problem too, and any sustained improvement of ties between North Korea and the U. S. would be a loss for Beijing.
That doesn\u2019t mean that denuclearization is completely impossible and shouldn\u2019t be a long-term goal, but more achievable and realistic goals should be sought as talks move forward. This requires a concrete plan of give and take, with the most achievable goals taking priority, and denuclearization saved for last. This is more in line with the phased approach desired by Kim, and while at odds with the strategy that National Security Advisor John Bolton prefers, it is the only path that isn\u2019t a dead-end given North Korea\u2019s strategic demands and China\u2019s role as a spoiler.
The problem with a phased approach is that the U. S. has been burned by it in the past. The solution lies in building trust. Bring in a disinterested third party \u2014 possibly Switzerland, where Kim went to school as a boy \u2014 that can oversee, validate, and manage the step-by-step process of give and take. This is no different than a third-party that clears and settles transactions between two parties who do not know or trust each other in international trade. Greater trust between the Trump administration and Kim also offsets Beijing\u2019s advantage of having an existing relationship of give-and-take with Kim.
Finally, the United States must work to neutralize China\u2019s influence in Pyongyang. That means giving Kim a clear binary choice: trade with China, or trade with the entire world. And the North Koreans can only be given a binary choice if the U. S. is fully willing to walk away from talks, if the North Koreans fail to follow a verifiable, step-by-step process. Here, Trump\u2019s firm commitment to fixing or managing the Korean Peninsula risks doing the opposite, which strengthens North Korea\u2019s position. But it also strengthens China if North Korea thinks it can receive benefits from China and still walk back to an anxiously waiting United States.
Yet if Kim really seeks prosperity, his country needs relations with more than China and Russia, and he needs an end to sanctions. The choice should be made clear: If North Korea \u2014 under incentive from China or not \u2014 fails to operate with some modicum of good-faith, the hermit kingdom can keep on trading raw materials with China and be forever isolated from the outside world
There is a way to avoid war, nudge North Korea away from China, and make the Korean Peninsula safer. Set out concrete steps of give-and-take, bring in a neutral arbiter, be willing to walk away, and first seek what\u2019s realistically possible.
Willis L. Krumholz is a fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry.<\/p>\n