Is China Using North Korea To Test Trump?

China figures strongly into the current North Korea crisis, but exactly how is a matter of dispute. President Trump seems to believe that China is the key to resolving the matter of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, but it is far from certain that China’s interests in the region align with our own.

Beyond the fact that Trump was overtly hostile and, at times, insulting to China during the presidential campaign, China is in the midst of a long campaign to expand its power in Asia and beyond. Chinese island-building in the South China Sea is common knowledge. Less known is how Chinese influence is growing in the Middle East, Africa and even the Americas.

As Chinese military and economic influence grows around the world, the inescapable conclusion is that China has dreams of replacing the US as the world’s dominant superpower. That being the case, it would be in China’s interest to make the US look bad in the confrontation with North Korea. If China can use North Korea to hasten the American decline in Asia, which began with the 1953 stalemate in Korea and continued with Vietnam and the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership, it would probably not hesitate to do so.

Aside from their aim of overtaking the United States, a secondary goal of the Chinese government could be to test President Trump. There is pattern of Chinese crises shortly after Republican presidents take office. In June 1989, five months after George H. W. Bush became president, violent repression of the Chinese democracy protests at Tiananmen Square led to soured relations between the two countries. In April 2001, three months into the presidency of George W. Bush, a Chinese fighter collided with a US Navy reconnaissance plane. The American plane made an emergency landing on Hainan Island and the crew was detained for 11 days by the Chinese government. Now, soon after President Trump took office, the North Koreans increased their missile testing. While these incidents were presumably not manufactured by China, they may well have used the events to test the mettle of the new occupants of the Oval Office.

Read the rest from David Thornton HERE.

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