US expert urges Trump to risk trade war with China in denuclearizing Pyongyang

By Park Sae-jin Posted : November 29, 2016, 09:01 Updated : November 29, 2016, 09:01

[A picture captured from SBS]


Next US president Donald Trump should adopt a "more coercive" approach like a trade war with China to win cooperation in forcing North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, a US expert said.

Gordon Chang, an East Asia security expert, said in an article published by US magazine Forbes that Chinese leader Xi Jinping would stop supporting Pyongyang  only when the costs of doing so are too high.

The current set of US policies, in place for two decades, are guaranteed to fail as they have resulted in "an even more irresponsible Beijing and a nuked-up Kim regime", he said. "So it's time for fresh approaches, perhaps even to wage that trade war with China, not just to protect the jobs of American workers and the profits of American businesses but the lives of American citizens."

Chang criticized President Barrack Obama and his predecessor for pursuing ineffective policies, suggesting that waging a trade war may be the only way to obtain Beijing's cooperation on North Korea.

"Instead of helping to craft a solution, Beijing used its central position to give the North Koreans the one thing they needed most to make themselves a real menace, time," the expert said.

"North Korea looks impossible to solve, and it is if we see China as on our side. It is not. But if we treat China as part of the problem, which it most certainly is, then we can begin to craft solutions, like secondary sanctions," he said.

To impose costs, Chang said that Trump's administration could, among other things, cut offending Chinese banks off from the global financial system, sanction every Chinese proliferator, and impose his threatened 45 percent across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods.

Beijing has "few effective options for a long-term struggle" with Washington, he said, citing China's trade surplus. "Trade-surplus countries are vulnerable in trade wars, and that is especially true of a China with an already fragile economy that is dependent on the American market."

Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
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