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| Image: Flickr User - The White House |
By Scott A. Snyder
The recent nuclear test has exposed a deep Sino-U.S. gap over North Korea.
The “artificial earthquake” in North Korea caused by its fourth nuclear test has set off geopolitical tremors in U.S.-China relations, exposing the underlying gap between the two countries that has long been papered over by their common rhetorical commitment to Korean denuclearization. At their Sunnylands summit in June of 2013, Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama vowed to work together on North Korea. Last September in Washington, the two leaders underscored the unacceptability of a North Korean nuclear test.
But Secretary of State John Kerry stated in his January 7 conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that previous approaches to the North Korean problem have not worked and that “we cannot continue business as usual.” The Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, responded by stating that “[t]here is no hope to put an end to the North Korean nuclear conundrum if the U.S., South Korea, and Japan do not change their policies toward Pyongyang. Solely depending on Beijing’s pressure to force the North to give up its nuclear plan is an illusion.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat