BEIJING — As North Korea prepares a potential missile test and issues threats almost daily, the Obama administration on Saturday looked again for China to force its unruly neighbor to stand down.
It's a strategy that has produced uneven results over decades of American diplomacy, during which Pyongyang has developed and tested nuclear weapons and repeatedly imperiled peace on the Korean peninsula.
But with only the counter-threat of overwhelming force to offer the North Koreans, the U.S. has little choice but to rely on Beijing to de-escalate tensions in a peaceful manner.
REUTERS
Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang before a meeting in Beijing today.
The question of how Washington can persuade Beijing to exert real pressure on Korean leader Kim Jong Un's unpredictable regime was front and center as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a series of meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing.
As they sat down together in China's Great Hall of the People, Kerry told President Xi Jinping that he looked forward to talking about the Korean situation. He later met Premier Li Keqiang and other top communist party figures.
The immediate crisis: a North Korean test of a mid-range missile with a range of up to 2,500 miles that the U.S. believes could happen any day. The long-term problem: a nuclear program that may soon — or already — include the capability to deliver a warhead on a missile.
China is the only country with significant leverage over North Korea, a regime that like few in the world actually cherishes its isolation.
The Chinese have dramatically boosted trade ties with their neighbors and maintain close military relations some six decades after they fought side by side in the Korean War. They provide the North with most of its fuel and much of its food aid.
But Beijing, which values stability in its region above all else, clearly has different priorities than Washington.
China's greatest fear is the implosion of North Korea's impoverished state and the resulting chaos that could cause, including possibly millions of refugees fleeing across the border into China.
For that reason, China has in many ways looked past North Korea's bellicose rhetoric and activity, prioritizing the security of Kim's regime — like his father's and grandfather's previously — over nuclear proliferation concerns.
"China's main interest in North Korea is not denuclearization; it is ensuring that the North Korean government does not fall," Asia expert John Pomfret wrote in a recent opinion piece.
"While Beijing might be exasperated with the Kim dynasty's uncanny ability to wag China's dog, China will support Pyongyang because the alternative, a North Korean collapse, is worse," he wrote. "While many South Koreans fear the cost of unification with their brothers to the north, China opposes that even more stridently."
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