Korean Peninsula under Nuclear threat!

ON Friday, North Korea test-fired a second Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), claiming it proved that the entire US was within striking range. The launch came three weeks after the state’s first ICBM test. The US says it will not call for a UN Security Council meeting over North Korea’s missile tests because it would produce “nothing of consequence”. Such a meeting would send a message to North Korea that the international community was unwilling to challenge it, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said.

Pyongyang said its tests proved that the entire US was within range. The US has responded by testing an anti-missile system and flying bombers over the Korean Peninsula. On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he had spoken to US President Donald Trump and they agreed on the need for further action on North Korea given its most recent missile test on Friday.

The two did not discuss any use of military action. Ms Haley said that North Korea was already subject to numerous Security Council Resolutions that they “flout with impunity”. She urged China to rein in North Korea. US President Donald Trump has again criticised China for not doing enough to stop Pyongyang’s weapons programme while making “hundreds of billions of dollars” in trade with the US.

Despite fierce objections from China, the US military recently began installing missile defences – the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system – in South Korea, with the aim of shooting down any North Korean missiles fired in conflict. US B-1 bombers also conducted exercises over the Korean Peninsula with South Korean and Japanese planes on Sunday.

China is simply in the wrong place on North Korea. It is allowing Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambitions to undermine Chinese national interest. There are complex reasons for this including history, habit and political culture. But among Chinese foreign policy experts and even on social media, unease is beginning to spread.

China seems trapped with only two choices: a nuclear-armed North Korea or a reunified Korea with American troops on China’s border. Between these choices, it finds a nuclear-armed North Korea preferable. A fundamental shift in how Beijing sees the region and its relationships within it is required as China is after all an ideologically insecure one-party state. A profound aversion to liberal internationalism has tied it to a rigid position on non-interference in the internal affairs of another state.

But the policy is not working with the Kim led North Korea. North Korea’s regime shows open contempt for Chinese national interests and national policy. It is time the Chinese used a carrot and stick policy — give aid to its neighbour while softly warning it to not to increase its nuclear ambitions. If it doesn’t then the last thing the world needs is a nuclear capable North using its missiles on the US and Japan while the US under Trump does likewise. It is a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) recipe.