China biggest winner in North Korea agreement

Eager for U.S. pullout

BEIJING — Beijing’s optimism about this week’s summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reflects the reality that China, though not party to the talks, emerged as a winner — ensuring its growing influence in the region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the dialogue “precisely the goal that China had always sought and worked hard for,” citing the “equal dialogue” between Trump and Kim, and the goal of “complete denuclearization.”

But more can be read between the lines.

“By this, China also includes withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula,” said Paul T. Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing and former National Security Counsel director for China in the Obama and Bush administrations.

That would be a big win for China, said Ryan Hass, foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution and also a former NSC China director.

“China would like to see a reduction in military forces in Northeast Asia and a widening of the gap between the United States and its allies and partners,” Hass said in a Brookings blog post. “Beijing is now on track to achieve these objectives at little cost.”

Counselor Yu Dunhai of the Chinese Foreign Ministry told reporters here that the removal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula — a position Chinese officials have long pressed for — should be the natural result if the U.S. meets its goal of complete denuclearization of North Korea by 2020.

“If North Korea is no longer an issue, then what is the purpose of leaving the troops here?” Yu told American reporters in Beijing yesterday.

But back in the U.S., that prospect spurred concerns.

“Not only did President Trump sideline South Korea, one of our strongest allies, with the announcement, he may have unwittingly given a green light to China to pursue more aggressive actions in the region,” U.S. Sen. Edward Markey said.

Trump, in a press conference Tuesday after the summit, said he would like to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea “at some point” — but not now.

“We have right now 32,000 soldiers in South Korea, and I’d like to be able to bring them back home. But that’s not part of the equation right now,” Trump said.

According to the Pentagon, about 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea. Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters earlier this month that the troops are “not going anywhere.”