Trump accelerates NK confrontation

The Korean Peninsula is heating up, with North Korea mixing missile tests with an assassination via nerve gas and China launching an economic strike against South Korea for joining America’s anti-missile program. Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s policy appears to be to stoke the flames.

When presented with a Chinese proposal for a North Korean nuclear and missile freeze in exchange for U.S. and South Korean cancellation of ongoing military exercises, U.N. Ambassador Nikki R. Haley declared that “We have to see some sort of positive action by North Korea before we can take them seriously.”

The threat of additional negative steps should be reason enough for contact. However, South Korea’s U.N. ambassador, Cho Tae-yul, declared: “This is not the time for us to talk about freezing or dialogue with North Korea.”

If not now, when? And if not dia- logue, then what?

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is heading to Asia for talks “to try to generate a new approach to North Korea,” according to a State Department spokesman. What might that be?

Amb. Haley repeated a bromide from the past: “I can tell you we’re not ruling anything out, and we’re considering every option.” However, the implied military threat will only drive the North toward greater commitment to creating a deterrent while unsettling the South, which would bear the brunt of any ensuing conflict.

Such a strike would be a wild gamble, assuming that the U.S. could take out the essentials of the North’s nuclear program while Pyongyang exercised restraint in its response. If Amb. Haley believes North Korea’s young Marshal Kim Jong-un to be “non-rational,” as she said, why would she assume he would passively sit through a U.S. attack?

What are the other options? More sanctions, almost every observer says. But so far Beijing has carefully limited the impact of economic restrictions to prevent a crisis in the North.

If Secretary Tillerson really wants to promote “a new approach,” he needs to be prepared to negotiate with the PRC, addressing their concerns about the prospect of a messy collapse of the North and hostile reunification landing U.S. forces on their border. That is, the sort of deal-making favored by President Donald Trump.

The PRC long has pressed the U.S. to make a generous offer to Pyongyang to reverse the “hostile” environment which Chinese officials believe to be the cause of the North’s missile and nuclear programs. If Washington wants China’s cooperation, the U.S. needs to give as well as take.

Indeed, why reject the nuke freeze for military maneuvers offer? Maybe the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea isn’t serious, but the only way to find out is to accept, forcing the DPRK to say yes or no. Dropping the maneuvers would be a small concession — South Korea long ago should have taken over its conventional defense long ago — while backing up the PRC would allow Washington to request greater support from China.

Some analysts boldly propose sanctioning Chinese financial institutions which deal with the North. Secretary Tillerson even proposed compelling the PRC to enforce sanctions as demanded by Washington, whatever that would entail. However, neither China’s leaders nor its people are inclined to accept foreign dictates. Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of “Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Policy in a Changed World” and co-author of “The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea.”