Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy
There is a serious risk that North Korea will use renewed dialogue tactically to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul and to dilute the effects of recently imposed sanctions.
As China continues to make further inroads in expanding economically and asserting itself in global affairs, what role could it play in solving some of today’s major crises?
Tensions with North Korea have grown under the administration of President Donald Trump, and the danger of nuclear confrontation is now higher than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.
On the North Korea nuclear threat, global leaders have an obligation not to avoid reality.
The Trump administration is expected to release its nuclear policy review at the end of this year, which could make nuclear deterrence a central pillar of U.S. national security.
While North Korea was at the top of the list of issues to discuss during President Donald Trump’s first official visit to China, it remains to be seen how much substantive progress was made on deescalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.
The risk of an inadvertent nuclear war is rising because of the entanglement of non-nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons and their command-and-control capabilities.
The gap between the Chinese and U.S. views on North Korea is too deep and fundamental, and any illusion it can be bridged in a relatively short period of time will only set the two powers on a path to collision with each other.
Dialogue in various formats—bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral—will not eliminate some fundamentally conflicting views and the misalignment of perceived national interests among China, Japan, and the United States, but it can help to reduce the risk and the cost of ill-advised defense investments.
If President Donald Trump wants to make his upcoming Beijing summit meeting with President Xi Jinping successful, it is time to take a step back and reflect on his overall approach to solicit China’s cooperation.
This two-track program offers both junior and senior experts opportunities to exchange views on nuclear, missile, space, conventional, chemical and biological weapon developments. It is intended as a regularized mechanism for Chinese and foreign experts to interact on targeted arms control issues, while engaging and educating a new generation of arms control experts. The program facilitates frank and open exchange on specific arms control issues and seeks to delineate concrete measures for advancing international cooperation with China.
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