WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has held out the possibility of using trade as a lever to secure Chinese cooperation against North Korea and suggested Washington might deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes on its own if need be.
The comments, in an interview published on Sunday by the Financial Times, appeared designed to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of his visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this week.
“China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone,” Trump was quoted as saying, according to an edited transcript published by the newspaper.
Asked what incentive the United States had to offer China, Trump replied: “Trade is the incentive. It is all about trade.”
Asked if he would consider a “grand bargain” in which China pressured Pyongyang in return for a guarantee the United States would later remove troops from the Korean peninsula, the newspaper
quoted Trump as saying: “Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.”
It is not clear whether Trump’s comments will move China, which has taken steps to increase economic pressure on Pyongyang but has long been unwilling to do anything that may destabilise the North and send millions of refugees across their border.
It is also unclear what the United States might do on its own to deflect North Korea from the expansion of its nuclear capabilities and from the development of missiles with ever-longer ranges and the capacity to deliver atomic warheads.
Trump’s national security aides have completed a review of US options to try to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes that includes economic and military measures but leans more
towards sanctions and increased pressure on Beijing to rein in its reclusive neighbour, a US official said.
Although the option of pre-emptive military strikes on North Korea is not off the table, the review prioritises less-risky steps and “de-emphasises direct military action,” the official added, saying it was not immediately known if the National Security Council recommendations had made their way to Trump.
The White House declined comment on the recommendations.
Trump and Xi are also expected to discuss Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year, when they meet on Thursday and Friday. China claims most of the resource-rich South China Sea, while Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims on the strategic waterway.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke on Sunday with China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, about Xi’s visit “and other issues of bilateral and regional importance,” a State Department official said on condition of anonymity.
China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday about the call that Yang had described the meeting between Xi and Trump as being of “great significance” for peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large.
— Reuters
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