The good and the bad for China in a return to US-North Korea nuclear tensions
- The failed Kim-Trump talks in Hanoi allow things to stay as they are, preserving China’s regional power
- But security risks tied to North Korea’s nuclear weapons threaten Chinese interests
When a North Korea-US nuclear disarmament summit collapsed in Hanoi last week, the diplomatic debacle left China with a dilemma.
On the one hand, Beijing needs things to stay as they are on the Korean peninsula to preserve its regional power; on the other, it is wary of the security risks created by a return to rising tensions between Pyongyang and Washington.
“While China has an interest in keeping [Pyongyang] from making further destabilising moves, it also does not want a [North Korea-US] deal that results in the curtailing of Chinese influence on the Korean peninsula,” said Adam Ni, a China researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney.
Washington and Pyongyang have been increasingly hawkish since US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un abandoned their discussions over the best way to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons.
Most recently, the two countries have been at loggerheads over the US’ insistence that North Korea go beyond its offer to close its main Yongbyon reactor complex, reviving hostility that had eased with June’s first Trump-Kim summit in Singapore that ended with a vaguely worded declaration on denuclearisation.
Then, just days after the ill-fated Hanoi summit, Pyongyang indicated that it intended to ramp up its nuclear programme by rebuilding its partially dismantled Sohae missile launch facility, according to satellite images taken by website 38 North and people briefed on South Korean intelligence.