What Can China Do About North Korea?
President Trump meets with the leaders of South Korea and Japan Thursday evening to discuss the North Korean crisis. Absent from their dinner is Chinese President Xi Jinping, who Trump has said is key to resolving the impasse over Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons and missile programs. His absence is reportedly intended to put pressure on Beijing over its perceived inaction on North Korea.
Trump has made China’s role a centerpiece of his North Korea policy. Even before his inauguration, he Beijing has “been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the U.S. … but won’t help with North Korea,” which he has described as “a real threat the Chinese president had convinced him that “it’s not so easy.” Then this week, after North Korea tested what it said was an intercontinental ballistic missile that experts say could reach Alaska, Trump tweeted:
