With nuclear bomb, Kim dares Trump and Xi to stop him
Tokyo: In detonating North Korea’s most powerful nuclear bomb yet, Kim Jong-un is betting it’s too late for either US President Donald Trump or Chinese leader Xi Jinping to be able to take away his atomic arsenal.
Kim’s regime claimed on Sunday it successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb that can fit onto an intercontinental ballistic missile, advancing its quest to be able to hit the United States with a nuclear weapon.
Regardless of whether it was actually a hydrogen bomb, the explosion was big enough to “pretty much end an American city” if strapped on an ICBM, according to Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who focuses on nuclear issues.
“That makes it harder for either the US or China to force Kim to back down,” Narang said.
“I had thought that maybe Kim hadn’t tested number six for the past several months because that was a red line for China.
“But clearly he decided to blow past it.”
The failure of the United States and China to find a common approach has allowed Kim to accelerate his nuclear weapons programme, something he says is essen- tial to deter an American invasion.
With each provocation he appears to have gained confidence that the United States won’t resort to military action that could unleash World War III.
Equally, he’s betting China won’t cut off the sales of oil and food that keep his regime afloat.
North Korea carried out its test when both Trump and Xi had potential distractions: The US president toured southern states devastated by Hurricane Harvey, while Xi is hosting leaders from Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa.
In posts about eight hours after the test on Twitter Trump said North Korea’s actions remained hostile to America. Xi did not mention North Korea in a speech at the BRICS meeting in Xiamen.
In a statement on Sunday, China’s foreign ministry condemned the test and called on North Korea to “return to the track of dialogue”.
Russia echoed those comments, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov saying the situation can only be solved through talks.
The timing during the BRICS summit “shows China cannot force North Korea to give up its nuclear missiles, and North Korea is increasingly hostile to China”, said Shi Yinhong, an adviser to China’s cabinet and international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing.
“Beijing is increasingly sceptical about the strategy to implement more sanctions.”
Further UN resolutions are likely to make little difference as China won’t fully participate in sanctions and there’s little the United States can do without risking a war in Asia, Andrei Lankov, a historian at Kookmin University in Seoul who once studied in Pyongyang, said.
“North Korea will never give up its ambition of attaining usable nuclear weapons,” Lankov said.
“I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times that North Korea has crossed an uncrossable red line with impunity.” — Bloomberg