N. Korea shoves to top of G-20 agenda
U.S. warns of harsh penalties if missile-brandishing regime can’t exercise restraint
President Trump’s return to Europe this week was supposed to focus on resolving many of the lingering issues from his trip there in May, when he exposed rifts with allies over defense spending, trade and climate change.
But North Korea’s missile test July 4 put the rogue regime at the forefront of the annual meeting of the Group of 20 largest economies, where the major players in the escalating crisis will be represented: the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.
As Trump departed for Warsaw on Wednesday, he tweeted at China, spoke to world leaders aboard Air Force One and prepared for a special meeting of the G-20 in Hamburg on Thursday night to discuss security on the Korean Peninsula.
“Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!” Trump tweeted Monday after the North Korean missile test.
Harry Kazianis of the Center for the National Interest, a Washington-based think tank founded by President Nixon, said Trump’s tweets are intended to send a “strategic signal” to China.
During the Cold War, nuclear powers would demonstrate their resolve by lining up bombers on the runway or opening and closing the doors to nuclear missile silos, he said. Trump uses a smartphone. “This is Trumpianstyle signaling to the Chinese,” Kazianis said. The message: Trump’s conciliatory posture toward China on trade and other issues may come to an end.
Though Trump took a hard line on China during the presidential campaign, pledging repeatedly to label China a currency manipulator, he reversed course after his meeting with President Xi Jinping in April. “Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem?” Trump tweeted. “We will see what happens.”
As Trump’s tweets on China have grown tougher, so have the actions taken by the administration.
In the past week, the Trump administration has imposed secondary sanctions on Chinese entities doing business with North Korea, ordered U.S. ships through a South China Sea passage claimed by China and approved a $1.4 billion arms sale to the Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province.
Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow before the G-20 summit, Xi said only that the Korean situation was “complicated” and that “the present world is disquieting.” He signed on to a joint statement seeking a negotiated solution that would link a nuclear freeze by North Korea with a halt to joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea.
The United States rejected that condition and engaged in a test missile launch of its own with South Korea.
In a joint statement, U.S. and South Korean commanders noted that the Korean War technically never ended. “Self-restraint, which is a choice, is all that separates armistice and war,” said the statement from U.S. Gen. Vincent Brooks and South Korean Gen. Lee Sun Jin.
The Trump administration also ramped up diplomatic pressure. “Any country that hosts North Korean guest workers, provides any economic or military benefits or fails to fully implement U.N. Security Council resolutions is aiding and abetting a dangerous regime,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday.
U.N. human rights investigators said North Korea has exported more than 50,000 workers, taking most of their pay to provide much-needed foreign currency for the regime.
China and Russia are the most common destinations for North Korean guest workers, but they’re used for hard labor in Qatar, the Persian Gulf country on a building spree for the 2022 World Cup.