There will now be renewed focus on the administration’s fervent appeals to China to solve the crisis for the US by leaning heavily on on its recalcitrant neighbor. The next few days will show whether Trump’s lavish praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping will yield a meaningful shift in China’s position on the crisis — perhaps through a coordinated response gamed out with Trump during his talks this month in Beijing.
Many regional analysts, however, doubt that US pressure on China to do more — possibly by entirely choking off North Korea’s energy supplies — will work, since Beijing’s national interests mitigate any action that could risk the downfall of the regime and the reunification of a pro-American Korean state.
A recent trip to Pyongyang by a Chinese envoy did little to ease the situation, and Kim and Xi have no relationship.
In one intriguing dimension of the diplomatic puzzle, former President Barack Obama announced an international trip on Tuesday — that will include talks in Beijing with Xi. Any notion that Obama could either carry a message for Xi, or unofficially intercede on Trump’s behalf as a respected former president, seems farfetched, however, given the current President’s disdain for his predecessor.
In Trump’s defense, his failure so far to halt North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat puts him in a club with Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush, who were similarly unsuccessful during their terms.
But the fateful moment when North Korea crosses the threshold of having the capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon to US soil will come on his watch.
International diplomacy
In the short term, the predictable machinery of international diplomacy is already swinging into action with ritual condemnations from world powers. Trump spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in Tuesday evening US time. US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley and her counterparts from Japan and South Korea have requested an emergency Security Council meeting for Wednesday.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that the idea that diplomacy has failed is false.
“There’s a false narrative about North Korea that has been purposefully promulgated … that somehow diplomacy has failed, and therefore it is only ‘fire’ and ‘fury’ that is going to meet this challenge and be effective,” said Kerry, a Democrat who served in the Obama administration.
But there is a genuine sense in Washington, from Capitol Hill to the White House, that options that center on more sanctions may be running out of time, given their limited impact on North Korean behavior.
That leaves Trump contemplating steps that fall short of direct military action but could significantly change the US approach.
One option would be to launch an intense new diplomatic push, possibly to offer North Korea the prospect of a radically altered relationship with the United States and its allies, and finally a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.
But key players in the administration are skeptical that Kim could be trusted to live up to any new commitments that could emerge from a diplomatic grand bargain given his country’s past record. And the White House position that Pyongyang must first denuclearize its arsenal is likely to be a nonstarter for North Korea.
Trump could intensify the pace of US military exercises off the North Korean coast — but tensions are so high there are fears that miscalculations could spark conflict.
Another option would be to abandon attempts to persuade China to do more and try to force more significant action, including by directly sanctioning major Chinese banks and energy firms that do business with North Korea.
Such a step is as likely to backfire and provoke a crisis in US-China relations as to meaningfully change China’s approach, however. The fact that it is even a possibility shows the limited and unappealing options open to Trump.
