China could stop North Korea's nuclear threat in a heartbeat without firing a shot

pulse

June 9, 2017 4:52 PM

"China can disarm North Korea in the blink of an eye," writes Gordon Chang, the author of "The Coming Collapse of China."

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Chinese President Xi Jinping has assured US President Donald Trump that China has limited influence over North Korea, but that's only half true.

It's true that diplomatic relations between the two are weak. Xi has never visited Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, and Kim has never been to Beijing. High-ranking officials with ties to China in North Korea have been executed at Kim's order, sometimes with packs of dogs, sometimes with anti-aircraft guns.

But Gordon Chang, the author of "The Coming Collapse of China," writes in The Cipher Brief that 90% of North Korea's trade is done with China, accounting for 90% of its oil and, in some years, 100% of its aviation fuel.

After a provocative North Korean missile launch in 2003, China cut off its supply of oil to North Korea for three days. In no time, the Kim regime caved to international demands and sat down for the six-party talks on nuclear disarmament.

"China can disarm North Korea in the blink of an eye," Chang wrote.

And it could do so by crippling North Korea's economy — but at a huge cost to North Koreans.

Sanctions on North Korea do not affect regular trade. Although the UN takes very seriously the prospect of an aggressive, nuclear-armed North Korea, economic warfare in the form of too-harsh sanctions would harm or kill civilians — China also supplies at least a third of North Korea's food, according to Chang.

Additionally, China pressing North Korea to the point of regime collapse would contradict its interests, as Beijing doesn't want to face a strong, democratic, unified Korea on its border that could play host to US military installations.

But North Korea, with its incessant nuclear provocations and nearly weekly missile tests, functions as a giant bull's-eye for the US, though any military confrontation would run a high risk of going nuclear and killing hundreds of thousands, if not more.

"China will either decide to help us with North Korea or they won't," Trump said in an April interview with the Financial Times. "If they do, that will be very good for China, and if they don't, it won't be good for anyone."

So as North Korea progresses toward a nuclear missile that can strike the US, China must decide how hard it's willing to press the rogue Kim regime while considering its increasingly strained relationship with the US over supporting it.

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