Will China go along with US strategy to dial up pressure on North Korea?
‘Big gap’ exists between Washington and Beijing’s expectations on how to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, Chinese analyst says
The United States’ plan to “lean hard” on China to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions may yield limited results, a Chinese analyst has suggested.
There is a “big gap” between what Washington expects Beijing to do to help curb Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme and what Beijing is actually willing to do, according to Shi Yinhong, a State Council adviser and director of the Centre for American Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.
Shi was commenting on Thursday after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the previous day that Washington was only in the early stages of its campaign to pressure North Korea and that it would “lean hard” on China to do so as well.
“[Tillerson’s speech] was only bluffing to some extent. The Trump administration is in such a mess now I don’t believe they have a comprehensive plan [on North Korea],” he said.
The US campaign to pressure China to rein in North Korea had already achieved some degree of success as Beijing had toughened its response towards Pyongyang, Shi said.
But he added that he was highly sceptical of how far Beijing would be willing to go along with the strategy.
