China’s attempted power play hands leverage to Trump on North Korea

Does China get too much credit for its leverage over North Korea? Even after Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Kim Jong Un for a surprise summit in Beijing last month, FDD Research Analyst Mathew Ha argues that this move actually ceded leverage to the United States, who just sent a high-level official to Pyongyang to “lay the groundwork” for the upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit.

In his latest op-ed for The Hill, Ha elaborates on the China-North Korea relationship since Kim Jong Un took power of the “Hermit Kingdom” in 2011, and explains how this relationship translates to political leverage the U.S. should use with both China and North Korea leading up to the approaching summit.

An excerpt from the op-ed follows:

“At the end of March, Chinese President Xi Jinping also surprised the world by hosting Kim Jong Un in Beijing for an unexpected summit. While Xi may think China gained the diplomatic advantage by being the first foreign leader to meet the Hermit Kingdom’s leader, he actually ceded leverage to the U.S. by showing that China retains its unique political influence over North Korea. Thus, in the run up to his own summit with Kim, President Trump can and should push China hard to ensure that North Korea puts real denuclearization proposals on the table.”

“China’s political relations with its neighbor have been strained for the past few years. Since taking power in 2011, Kim Jong Un has never met with his Chinese counterpart, let alone any Chinese senior official, until this recent summit in Beijing. Kim even purged his own uncle, Jang Song Thaek, North Korea’s primary interlocutor with China, to show Beijing he wanted Pyongyang to be more autonomous. In effect, Kim traded away the option of diplomacy for the freedom to conduct nearly 100 ballistic missile tests over six years.”

Read the full piece from The Hill here.

Mathew Ha is a research associate at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, focused on North Korea. Follow him on Twitter @MatJunsuk.

Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.