Jay Ambrose: Trump, China, videos and North Korea

President Donald Trump said back in January it would never happen, but it did. North Korea successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, meaning it could maybe someday hit the West Coast with a nuclear weapon. Here is a major concern demanding answers, and here is one thing that will not work.

That would be for Trump to send North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a video in which the president grabs him, throws him to the ground and starts punching him in the face.

Trump’s juvenile foray against CNN’s juveniles may seem irrelevant, a trivialization of a deadserious issue. But that’s what Trump has been up to too much lately: trivializing, trading confidence in his presidency for pettiness.

Can he rise above that? He better, and he has in fact made good moves. One of the best early on in his presidency was to establish what seemed a good relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. China is North Korea’s biggest trading partner, has already hurt that nation with a coal boycott and could crush it practically overnight with enough similar measures. Through them, there could be peaceful nuclear disarmament, and the world could be a safer place.

But while it has been saying mostly the right things, China has done little, probably because it fears an eventual union of South and North Korea with the U. S. military sitting near its border. Trump has expressed disappointment even as his administration has taken some steps encouraging China to act. It is, for instance, selling $ 1 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan, a nation of islands China figures on swallowing one of these days.

Other Korean options are not pretty, as experts inform us. We could have an all-out bombardment during which the North Koreans would likely kill millions in South Korea, not so cheap a price. Taking out Kim and his regime sounds like a good idea, but how? South Korea’s president says a smaller U. S. military presence there could maybe make the North relax and step back some, but probably not. An Atlantic magazine writer says the best of all the bad options would be simply to live with the risk, doing all we can to improve our missile defense. I don’t think so.

I think the best course is to bring China around, and for two reasons. One is that even if a shattered economy does not change North Korea’s attitudes, it could very well destroy the country’s ability to act on them. The second is that China is emerging as a superpower, and if we do not learn to work with the Chinese in a realistic, practical fashion, the consequences could be calamitous. The New York Times recently reviewed two books saying a U. S.- China war could be a real possibility at some point, and such a war could be world- crushing.

While there might be some advantage for China in letting North Korea further develop its nuclear capacities, the possibilities of disruptive hurt are hardly negligible. The United States would do well to be stern on some issues while seeking out means of mutually beneficial cooperation. It would make sense to try to return to something like the Obama administration’s Asian trade pact to further invigorate our economy and help better balance power in Asia.

As much as some hate to admit it, Trump has his virtues, but tweets are not one of them. The more he looks like a tasteless, vindictive, small- minded, self- obsessed president, the less effective he will be. The world, not so unexpectedly, is a mess, and we need him to use his virtues to make it less of one.

I am sure no video of Kim was ever planned, but any such video breeds trepidation that whacks effective action as much as fists whack the guy on the floor. What we need soon is another sit-down session with Xi, Mr. President.

In this summer of great political discontent, I find myself fascinated and buoyed by Wonder Woman and Amelia Earhart.

Wonder Woman, as portrayed in a blockbuster movie by the remarkable 32- year- old Israeli actress and mother of two Gal Godot, ignores the men around her during World War I and does what she thinks is right and moral. Who among us has not yearned to jump and soar in slow motion, smiting the wicked and dodging bullets with crossed arms encased in silver bracelets?

In the movie, Wonder Woman, alias Diana Prince, fights against Doctor Poison, an evil German female chemist. She also, of course, fights against men determined to kill millions in war.

Not surprising, perhaps, is that “Wonder Woman” has become controversial. Qatar, Lebanon and Tunisia have banned the movie because Gadot served her compulsory military service during Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon. Good grief, people. It’s a movie about truth, justice and the power of love!

Another development this summer involving a strong woman is the unearthing of a photo that experts think “very likely” shows aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan being held by the Japanese in 1937 after their plane crash- landed in the Marshall Islands. At the time, war clouds were forming that would turn into World War II.

As one of the thousands of elementary school children who wrote essays on Earhart and was frustrated by not knowing what happened to her on her around-theworld flight, I was never satisfied with the explanation that she died in a crash and was never found.

Now there is compelling evidence she was captured by Japanese soldiers and died, along with Noonan, in a prison camp. A photo of what looks to be Noonan and a woman with short hair and pants, most likely taken by a spy, was found in the National Archives.

Marshall Islanders — who even have a stamp in her honor — have for decades believed Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, survived a landing in their waters and was taken away by the Japanese, who at the time controlled the islands and had banned Westerners from the area.

A new History Channel documentary, “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence,” posits that this long- lost photo may well point to the explanation for her disappearance, which has captivated so many for so long. The photo shows a Japanese ship called the Koshu towing something that measures 38 feet in length, the dimension of Earhart’s plane. The documentary’s executive producer, Gary Tarpinian, told NBC News: “We believe that the Koshu took her to Saipan and that she died there under the custody of the Japanese.”

This development undoubtedly will lead to new avenues of research. And while it’s heartbreaking to think that she, like so many, perished in a terrible war, it’s also comforting to have evidence that this famous aviator might not have died in a crash.

One summer. Two vivid examples of strong, awesome women. It is just so heartening.