Beating the war drums before his meeting with 63-year-old Chinese President Xi Jinping, 70-year-old President Donald Trump expects to get down to brass tacks at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Miami. “North Korea is acting very badly. They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help,” Trump tweeted March 17. When Trump and Xi powwow April 5, North Korea will be high on the priority list, presenting problems for Trump, knowing North Korea and China remain close communist allies. However much China has developed pro-Western economy since former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger opened the door July 9, 1971 for President Richard Nixon to start trade relations Feb. 21, 1972, China remains a totalitarian state. Trump hopes that U.S. trade leverage with Xi will persuade the Chinese leader to pressure North Korea.
Ruled by 32-yer-old Kim Jong-un since April.11, 2012, North Korea remains the most repressive totalitarian regime on the planet. Nowhere is the contrast between capitalism and communism more stark than between North and South Korea. Below the 42nd parallel, South Korea holds the world’s 11th nominal GDP rank with North Korea listed at 125th, attesting to the Stalinist regime’s failed state. “China has a great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea or they won’t. And if they do that will very good for China, and if they don’t, it won’t be good for anyone,” Trump told the Financial Times April 2. Expecting China to put down the hammer with North Korea isn’t realistic. Beijing has its own geopolitical battles independent of North Korea, with Beijing using North Korea to buffer U.S. influence in Southeast Asia.
China and North Korea expressed extreme displeasure with Trump’s decision to go ahead with THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea. Whether admitted to or not, Beijing and Pyongyang see installing THAAD as an act of war in the Korean Peninsula, putting as much pressure on Washington to stop deployment of the anti-ballistic missile defense screen. “The Korean Peoples’ Army will reduce the bases of aggression and provocation to ashes with its Hwasong rockets tipped with nuclear warheads and reliably defend the security of the country and its people’s happiness in case the U.S. and South Korean puppet forces fire even a single bullet at the territory of DPRK,” said the North Korean military March 20. Trump ordered Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to put North Korea on notice.
Threatening nuclear attacks against the U.S. and its allies, the Trump administration looks serious about no longer ignoring the evolving North Korea threat. When Trump meets with Xi, he’ll let the Chinese Premier know that the U.S. can’t sit idly by while a world power threatens the U.S. with nuclear holocaust. Whatever Trump must do to protect U.S. national security, it’s certainly not up to a foreign power like China to guarantee a rogue state won’t act recklessly. “Right now, [North Korea] appears to be going in a very reckless manner . . . and that has got to be stopped,” said Defense Secretary James Mattis in London. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said “diplomatic efforts of the past 20 years to bring North Korea to a point of de-nuclearization have failed,” putting Pyongyang on notice that all options, including military actions, are “on the table.”
Once thought unthinkable in South Korea, military confrontation with North Korea looks more likely with Kim’s growing threats to wipe out South Korea, the U.S. and it’s allies, primarily Japan. When Trump meets Xi at Mar-a-Lago, he’ll push him to take decisive action to reverse North Korean’s feverish attempt to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads. Whether or not China can do much to contain Kim at this point is anyone’s guess. Xi will have to make a decision whether or not to defend North Korea or let Kim’s regime collapse under its own weight. Threatening the U.S. and its allies with nuclear annihilation has crossed a line that even China can’t ignore. Installing THAAD missile defense in Seoul has antagonized China every bit as much as North Korea. Trump hopes Xi values its relations with U.S. enough to take a hard stand on North Korea.
Trump walks a tightrope trying to persuade Xi that China’s best interests lie with the United States, not historic loyalty of North Korea. When the U.S. and South Korea battled North Korea to loggerheads signing an armistice June 27, 1953, it was primarily due to communist China and Russia. If China didn’t supply arms-and-troops, North Korea would have lost the war. Because China showed no signs of capitulation in the Korean War, the U.S. decided to end the conflict, reluctantly signing an armistice. Only four years removed from the Maosist Revolution, China could only see defending its communist ally back then. Whatever discomfort China has with the U.S. supplying missile defense in South Korea, Beijing knows Kim Jong-un can’t threaten nuclear war without consequences. Prepared to act unilaterally if necessary, the Trump White House gets serious about containing North Korea.
