US move on N. Korea missile tests, risks China clash
WASHINGTON: The US is scrambling to develop a new strategy to counter North Korea’s aggressive nuclear weapon and missile programmes, but tougher sanctions could provoke a diplomatic clash with China.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Washington’s frontline allies South Korea and Japan next week before heading on to great power rival China to discuss the mounting crisis.
Kim Jong-Un’s regime is testing a new ballistic missile that could threaten US bases and cities in the Pacific Rim, and rocket salvo tactics that could overwhelm missile defence systems.
Most observers see China as the only power with the leverage to get its isolated neighbour to stand down, and existing United Nations- backed sanctions have had little effect so far.
The crisis is the first major security challenge of Donald Trump’s presidency, and the Pentagon has already provoked China’s ire by deploying the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea.
Now, other options are being considered, and the hawkish wing of the Washington foreign policy community is pushing for measures that would hurt Chinese banks that work with Pyongyang.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner would not be drawn on the details of any plan Tillerson might take to Asia, but officials confi rmed that an urgent policy review is underway.
Toner said the North Korean threat would be ‘ front and centre’ in the planned talks next week between Tillerson and his Chinese, South Korean and Japanese counterparts.
The senior diplomats would, he said, “talk through what our options are and new ways to look at resolving the situation.”
But the signals coming out of China are not encouraging for those in Washington who cling to the hope that Beijing may be ready to rein in its small but belligerent neighbour.
On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi implied that theUS and North Korea were equally at fault for provoking the latest crisis and headed towards a ‘ head- on collision’.
Wang urged the US military to halt planned exercises with South Korea, in exchange for Pyongyang halting its nuclear and missile programmes — an idea Washington promptly dismissed. — AFP