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North Korea nuclear crisis
OpinionComment

The US needs China’s help to engineer peace on the Korean peninsula

Charles K. Armstrong and John Barry Kotch say Trump must respond to North Korea’s latest missile test not with belligerence but with a resolve to use diplomacy to restructure the Korean peninsula’s security framework

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Charles K. Armstrong and John Barry Kotch say Trump must respond to North Korea’s latest missile test not with belligerence but with a resolve to use diplomacy to restructure the Korean peninsula’s security framework
Charles K. ArmstrongandJohn Barry Kotch
Multilateral security arrangements guaranteeing the security of both Koreas would mitigate the gap between China’s view of North Korea as a buffer state and the US view of the North as a nuclear threat. Illustration: Craig Stephens
Multilateral security arrangements guaranteeing the security of both Koreas would mitigate the gap between China’s view of North Korea as a buffer state and the US view of the North as a nuclear threat. Illustration: Craig Stephens
While it wasn’t the big one – the threatened launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that the world had been primed for – US President Donald Trump nevertheless characterised the latest North Korean missile test as a “big problem”. And it came with a twist: Pyongyang upped the ante by unveiling a new class of solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile (although it flew only 500km, landing in the Sea of Japan or what Koreans call the East Sea).
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Still, the timing could not have been more telling – interrupting the dinner chatter between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the president’s Palm Beach retreat at Mar-a-Lago and putting policymaking “on the menu” – or the purpose more pointed. Apparently, Kim Jong-un was not about to cut Trump any slack during his first weeks in office. Whether this was a one-off or the prelude to a more ambitious launch of a longer-range ballistic missile only adds to the drama.

Watch: North Korea hails its new missile test as a success

As a new US administration settles into office, the fourth to confront the North Korean nuclear dilemma since the 1990s (preceded by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama), a sense of déjà vu is mixed with the realisation that the North is on the cusp of achieving the necessary range and warhead miniaturisation that could put the US homeland in the crosshairs and the US president in a Catch-22. And, given the virtual unanimity among experts that Pyongyang will have such a capability by 2020 at the latest, the Trump administration doesn’t have the luxury of kicking the can down the road.

Unpalatable as it is, Trump should talk to North Korea

How should the US respond to the reality of a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the US homeland? One possibility is pre-emption, which risks collateral damage to South Korea (Seoul is already in range of North Korea’s conventional artillery) and Japan. Or reliance on an antiballistic missile system, such as the THAAD defensive shield set to be deployed in South Korea by the end of the year. THAAD, unfortunately, is not foolproof and is seen by China as a threat to its own strategic deterrent capability. Or the US can explore a third way: a diplomatic initiative in concert with China.

For now, however, the Trump administration is most likely to double down on sanctions while accelerating the deployment of THAAD. North Korea is already probably the most heavily sanctioned country in the world and this move would do nothing to alter the reality of Pyongyang’s move towards nuclear capability. Further, most of its trade passes through China, facilitated by Chinese companies, banks and individuals. Beijing is not about to impose punishing sanctions on its Korean neighbour, destabilising a regime that serves as a buffer against encroachment by its southern rival and power projection to China’s border by the United States.

Heat is on China after North Korean missile test

South Korean protesters stage a rally this week outside the US embassy in Seoul, to oppose a plan to deploy the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea and upcoming joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, between the US and South Korea. Photo: AP
South Korean protesters stage a rally this week outside the US embassy in Seoul, to oppose a plan to deploy the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea and upcoming joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, between the US and South Korea. Photo: AP
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In its report on recommendations for the new administration on US policy towards China, the Asia Society ranks working with China to halt North Korea’s nuclear and missile programme as the most urgent. Specifically, it recommends that the US president “immediately engage” President Xi Jinping ( 習近平 ) to create a new “high-level channel dedicated to the joint resolution of this problem”. For his part, Xi appears accommodating, according to Xinhua, noting in a recent conversation with Trump that, “Facts have shown that cooperation is the only correct choice for the US and China”. The key question is, how far or deep will such cooperation go?
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