Xi may push for U.S.-North Korea talks to deter nuclear gambit
When Chinese President Xi Jinping sits down with President Donald Trump in Hamburg this week, he’ll confront a growing rift on how to rein in North Korea. Xi’s solution might be to put the onus back on the U.S.
The meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit comes amid the U.S. president’s growing displeasure at what he sees as a lack of Chinese pressure on its ally, especially after Kim Jong Un announced his first test of a missile capable of reaching Alaska. “So much for China working with us — but we had to give it a try!” Trump said in a tweet Wednesday.
Still, Trump’s angst — the U.S. is threatening trade ties with countries that do business with Pyongyang — may not have the desired effect of getting China to tighten the economic noose. As much as China frets about Kim’s nuclear ambitions, bigger concerns for Xi are the prospects for military conflict on the Korean Peninsula or a chaotic collapse of the regime.
That could see the Chinese leader double down on his argument that talks are the best alternative to cycles of sanctions that have done little to deter Kim’s nuclear gambit — and that discussions should start with direct U.S.-North Korea negotiations.
“The current sanctions approach that has been conducted in a piecemeal fashion has proven a failure,” Shi Yongming, an associate research fellow at Beijing’s China Institute of International Studies. “Right now, the most reasonable approach is to persuade the Americans and North Korea to talk directly.”
A push for direct negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea would represent a shift for China, which has long sought a seat at the table. While China has resisted U.S. demands to cut off vital food and energy exports to Kim’s regime, it has supported rounds of United Nations sanctions to force him back to the negotiating table.
The U.S. favors restarting the “sixparty talks” — including also Japan, Russia and South Korea — that North Korea abandoned in 2009, if the regime agrees to halt its weapons program.
Trump has suggested he might meet with Kim but under unspecified conditions, only. All but North Korea will be represented at the G-20 summit starting Friday in Hamburg.
“All North Korea wants to do is to talk to the U.S.,” Andrew Gilholm, director of North Asia analysis at Control Risks Group, said in Seoul. “There has to be a deal with the U.S. That is going to be harder because North Korea is more and more pushing acceptance of their nuclear status before they will even talk.”
Military action against North Korea would be far more dangerous, since Kim could launch conventional attacks against thousands of U.S. personnel and millions of civilians in South Korea and Japan.
Yang Xiyu, a former Chinese negotiator for the six-party negotiations, said Trump’s boasts about “China-U.S. togetherness” might have made Kim more provocative.
“There is a perception that Pyongyang is a card Beijing holds to wield influence over the U.S.,” Yang said. “But it’s actually becoming such a big strategic liability to China, that Beijing’s seeking what it thinks is the most feasible way to handle a hot potato.”