A clear policy is the need of hour on North Korea's missile advances
North Korea is in a self-destruct mode — or nearly that. Cocking a snook at the United States and the world community in general, it has tested an inter-continental ballistic missile and has vowed to not back off from its nuclear weapons drive. It is clear that the Chinese pressure is not working on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He has promised to demonstrate his nation's “mettle” to the US. His statements make it clear that there could be more nuclear tests in the near future. All of this leaves no room for negotiation. Beijing has either been not doing enough or that it is not being heard in Pyongyang. The second is more unlikely and the first more probable. This should not come as a surprise because China is using North Korea to sustain its importance in the world order.
It wants to draw in the US in a conflict where it can play the mediator and secure its stature in the international community. What else can explain North Korea's open defiance of US President Donald Trump's warning that further such tests would “not happen” again. Well, another test has happened. The United States has called for a global action against North Korea, but China knows it can (and will possibly) block any such move through its veto in the United Nations Security Council. This would mean that the US and other countries in the West may have to take a collective decision to move against North Korea. This will lead to an already frayed China-US ties getting worse. President Trump has to now spell out his country's stand against both North Korea and China. He has so far been ambivalent on China, blowing hot and cold all the while. In a similar vein, he has also been ambiguous on North Korea — he once surprisingly said that he would be “honoured” to meet the North Korean dictator directly. Such outreach has, demonstrably, not worked. On the contrary, it does appear that Kim Jong-un took the remark as a sign of wavering and proceeded with his destructive ways.
The fact is that with each passing day, North Korea is becoming better equipped to strike not just its neighbourhood (read South Korea) but even the US with its nuclear weapons — that is the true import of an inter-continental ballistic missile. Obviously Pyongyang's neighbours are worried and it is the United State's duty to now stand firm with its allies. That, however, is only possible if Washington, DC, formulates a clear policy on North Korea and acts on it. Diplomacy is desirable, true, but what use is diplomacy with a country that not just refuses to heed reason but over and over again indulges in provocative actsIJ The United States must realise that it cannot be blackmailed by nuclear threats. The bare fact is that President Trump's credibility is at stake, and so is the United States', by a renegade state's actions.