China holds the key to solving the Korean puzzle
Avoiding an escalation from words to missiles in the coming weeks is the priority
Kim Jong Un has got the measure of Donald Trump. The North Korean leader has found America’s most vulnerable point: the inability of its president not to respond to aspersion. Whatever the accuracy of the ballistic missiles that Pyongyang has devised, its leader’s insults have hit their desired mark.
Donald Trump, sitting at an outdoor table at his New Jersey golf club with his wife Melania at his side, hit back with apparently improvised remarks that further provocation would receive “fire and fury and frankly, power”. This response not only reveals a lack of understanding that a significant threat can come from a much less “powerful” nuclear armed country — precisely the point of this crisis — but advertises again the US president’s inability to tolerate any slight, whether from “fake news media”, an independent-minded attorney-general, or the rogue leader of the world’s most isolated state.
Where does this war — so far of words — go next? None of the options for dealing with the crisis is good. But some are far worse than others.
Much depends on what Mr Kim wants. Analysts I talked to this week in Japan agreed that his prime objective was to be treated by the US as “an equal”. In a sense, by provoking Mr Trump’s remarks, he has already achieved that. What then? We know he wants the regime to survive and to retain nuclear weapons: he has said so. Does he want to “force” the retreat of regional patrols and defences by the US and its allies? Probably a goal, even if unrealistic. To probe the routes to reunification of the Korean peninsula on his terms? That may be in the mix — but we could be trying too hard to discern strategy in what may be mainly a reflexive grab at status.
Alas, the same is true of the US, where the president’s compulsive need to defend status is clearer than any strategy. Mr Trump’s rhetoric boxed him in; it appeared to commit the US to a military response to almost any provocation. More gravity but not more clarity followed in twin statements: Rex Tillerson, secretary of state, soothingly maintained that diplomacy had some way to go, and James Mattis, defence secretary, asserted America’s right to defend its citizens with force if necessary.
Although the impression in the region was of incoherence, these are not necessarily contradictory. Each principle deserves a part in US strategy. But they are no substitute for a single, clear statement from the president. As it is, Mr Trump has alarmed allies and further energised Pyongyang without making clear to either what the US really intends to do.
What the president should do is try to turn this into a much longer discussion, in which the US has a chance of persuading China to put more pressure on North Korea than it has yet done.
For all Mr Tillerson’s optimistic noises, an immediate diplomatic solution seems out of reach. Pyongyang has shown no interest in a return to talks which demand it freeze or dismantle its nuclear capability. For all Mr Mattis’s emphasis, the attractions of further discussing military options simply illustrate how horrendous the consequences would be. North Korean action could stretch from a conventional military attack on South Korea to nuclear attack across the region and perhaps on the US. A US strike, conventional or nuclear, would ultimately overpower the regime, but at phenomenal human cost. Nor would the US be thanked in the region, by allies never mind China. Hence the hour-long call by Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president, to Mr Trump, arguing against military action.
There are only two other options. The first is to recruit China’s help more successfully than Mr Trump has yet done. One unfortunate aspect of his bellicose remarks is to distract attention from the real achievement of getting UN Security Council support in the past week, including backing from China and Russia, for more sanctions on Pyongyang. These do not, though, extend to blocking fuel or food, which China still sends over the border to North Korea. Beijing’s claims to lack influence are also disingenuous. For all its protestations, China’s desire to keep the Pyongyang regime in place has determined its actions, both to avoid reunification of the peninsula into a single US ally and to avoid a flood of refugees. But that, surely, is now surpassed by its desire not to see war on its doorstep.
The second step for the US is to work with South Korea and Japan to strengthen defences. That would require Mr Trump to reverse the “America first” rhetoric that has cast doubt on whether he values those alliances. But Mr Mattis and other realists around him might more easily persuade him of their value now.
There are no right answers that unlock the puzzle. The US does need to protect its people and help its allies in the face of a regime that appears to threaten them so catastrophically. But avoiding an escalation from words to missiles in the coming weeks should be the priority. China, as it has never acknowledged, is the key to any negotiated solution, and the only way to get there is with more time.
In this U.S. Department of Defense, a B-1B Lancer prepares to take off from Andersen Air Force base, Guam on Aug. 7. (Richard P. Ebensberger/AFP/Getty Images)