Thayer Consultancy Background Briefing:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

North Korean Crisis: Give
Chinese Diplomacy a Chance?
Carlyle A. Thayer
April 27, 2017

[client name deleted]

What is your current assessment of the North Korea crisis today? The US seems to be
banking on increased sanctions and has toned down the threat of kinetic action,
though Admiral Harry Harris [Commander, US Pacific Command]made some sharp
comments to Congress.
ASSESSMENT: President Donald Trump is acting to demonstrate that indeed the
Obama era of strategic patience with North Korea is over. Trump is good on rhetoric.
He declared that it [North Koreas development of a nuclear armed intercontinental
ballistic missile capable of striking the continental United States] wont happen. And
he declared that if China wont cooperate on North Korea the United States will [act
unilaterally now amended to act with its allies].
There are no easy options, especially military options, in dealing with North Korea. I
have been to the DMZ between North and South Korea as part of an official defense
study tour to South Korea and I learned what virtually all analysts are reporoting
North Korea has the means to launch devastating retaliation on Seoul should North
Korea be attacked. There is little the United States can do to pre-empt this retaliation.
An even worse scenario would be a North Korean nuclear strike on Japan and/or South
Korea.
Senators coming out of their White House briefing on the Korean peninsula revealed
that they were not told anything that they hadnt already known. There seems to be
a consensus among Senators that no US military moves are imminent.
Trump has put his bet on the China card in the hopes that pressure and sanctions by
Beijing will convince Pyongyang not to conduct a highly provocative sixth nuclear test
and perhaps delay any further ballistic missile launches into the Sea of Japan.
Trump has little option but to give diplomacy a chance. He once quipped that he would
invite Kim Jong-un to have a burger with him. China may well take him up on this offer
by trying to lay the ground work for secret talks. Perhaps the Six Party Talks can be
resumed in the future?
For the present it is wait and see. Is China applying the right kind of pressure and
sanctions on North Korea that the U.S. wants it to? And will Kim Jong-un moderate his
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behaviour to set the scene for the gradual resumption of diplomatic contacts with
South Korea and the United States?

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer North Korean Crisis: Give Chinese Diplomacy a
Chance?, Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, April 27, 2017. All background briefs
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