DURING the first presidential debate, Donald Trump suggested that China should invade North Korea. But in June, he said that he would be fine with hosting North Korean President Kim Jong Un for a visit.
When Kim said in a televised New Year message that North Korea was close to testing long-range missiles capable of striking America, the president-elect said: “It won’t happen.”
Was Trump dismissing Kim’s claims as just an empty talk or did he mean he would try to stop it at any cost?
Things became a bit clearer during Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ visit to South Korea. Any use of nuclear weapons by the North on the US or its allies would be met with an “effective and overwhelming” response, he said in Seoul on Feb. 3.
America would respond only if the North launched a nuclear attack on US or its allies. Kim may be unhinged but he is not crazy. He knows that any such attack would lead to American retaliation and obliteration of his country. He also knows that it is the possession of nukes that has helped his country avoid the fate of Iraq.
So things have gone on predictable lines. North Korea conducts another nuclear test and UN passes resolutions to slap sanctions on Pyongyang. Under the Agreed Framework signed during Bill Clinton’s presidency in 1994, Pyongyang promised to shelve its pursuit of a nuclear weapon in return for energy assistance from the United States, Japan and South Korea. But the deal collapsed when Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, confronted the North about its secret effort to enrich uranium in pursuit of the bomb.
North Korea has so far conducted a total of five nuclear tests – in 2006, 2009, 2013 and twice in 2016. The second in 2016 was on Sept. 9. Since the collapse of the deal, the US has been hoping to coax Kim back to the negotiating table — a stance the Obama administration dubbed “strategic patience” — just as Kim has been accelerating North Korea’s production of weapons-grade plutonium as well as its ballistic missile capabilities. Whenever a US administration’s patience wears thin, it approaches the UN Security Council for punitive sanctions to be imposed on North Korea. Here there are two problems. One, North Korea does not have much of a trade with outside world except China. Roughly 70 percent of North Korea’s total trade is with China which also happens to be its main supplier of energy and food. Second, a regime that warns its people that they may be eating grass to survive isn’t likely to lose its sleep over further economic sanctions. Only China can make or break the North Korean economy.
But Beijing is unlikely to follow up with strong action because a collapse of North Korea is not in its interest. It blames Washington and Seoul for growing tensions in the region. China is already upset with US interference in the disputed South China Sea. Complicating the situation is the US decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South to counter missile and nuclear threats from North Korea. Beijing views it as a threat to its own security though it is disguised as an attempt to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear program. The best way, according to China, to get Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program would be for the US to give North Korea a guarantee it won’t unseat the government.
That would not be enough. The North Koreans have long demanded one-on-one talks with the US. They seek to be recognized by the US and the West as a nuclear power as was the case with India and Pakistan. The real question is whether Trump is prepared for a new approach. “What the hell is wrong with speaking?” as the candidate Trump asked on the campaign trail in June.
