As North Korea prepares a potential missile test and issues threats almost daily, the Obama administration on Saturday looked again for China to force its unruly neighbor to stand down.
It’s a strategy that has produced uneven results over decades of American diplomacy, during which Pyongyang has developed and tested nuclear weapons and repeatedly imperiled peace on the Korean peninsula.
But with only the counter-threat of overwhelming force to offer the North Koreans, the US has little choice but to rely on Beijing to de-escalate tensions in a peaceful manner.
The question of how Washington can persuade Beijing to exert real pressure on Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s unpredictable regime was front and centre as US Secretary of State John Kerry held a series of meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing. As they sat down together in China’s Great Hall of the People, Kerry told President Xi Jinping that he looked forward to talking about the Korean situation. He later met Premier li Keqiang and other top communist party figures.
The immediate crisis: a North Korean test of a mid-range missile with a range of up to 2,500 miles that the U.S. believes could happen any day. The long-term problem: a nuclear program that may soon — or already — include the capability to deliver a warhead on a missile.
China is the only country with significant leverage over North Korea, a regime that like few in the world actually cherishes its isolation. The Chinese have dramatically boosted trade ties with their neighbors and maintain close military relations some six decades after they fought side by side in the Korean War. They provide the North with most of its fuel and much of its food aid.
But Beijing, which values stability in its region above all else, clearly has different priorities than Washington.
China’s greatest fear is the implosion of North Korea’s impoverished state and the resulting chaos that could cause, including possibly millions of refugees fleeing across the border into China.