As expected, China is not cooperating

No it wasn't.

Wrong on both counts. They would give up economic stability and the relationship is fine.

You're exaggerating, but I agree on the whole.

In fact, I think that Trump will rejoin TPP, he's just going to claim to have "renegotiated a better deal."

Whatever. He'll be happy, Abe'll be happy, I'll be happy.

Didn't come out of nowhere.

The expansion of Chinese soft power is inevitable as long as their economy grows so quickly.

It's been happening since roughly 1990.

Geopolitics is not binary. The South Koreans are not inclined to be anti-Chinese.

Remember Cablegate? Chinese officials, even then, were willing to discuss unification. They're more inclined, at this point.

Very different scenarios.

 

China doesn't keep its word and nothing prevents them from not honoring the Paris Agreement. China produces a third of the world's CO2 emissions and only uses 1% alternative energy. China can produce whatever it wants, but it is doing it to sell to others moreso than to deploy on their own. My point however was being made to another poster in a thread about China being non-cooperative. They have a history of non-cooperation and they will continue to have one.

 

It's not giving them permission. It is allaying any thoughts they may have that the US may intend to wrest control of NK away from their sphere of influence.

You see, if I were the POTUS, I would want the Chinese to know that all I want is one thing and one thing only. I want NK's nuclear program to end, and I want NK to be nuclear free. I'm not looking to bring about reunification, nor would I want to occupy NK. And so, I would want to reassure the Chinese that whatever happens, NK will remain with them..... just not as nuclear state. China is a nuclear state, and the Chinese can guarantee NK's security in exactly the same way our nukes guarantee the security of our allies.

I don't fear China's nukes because the Chinese are rational actors. NK is not a rational actor, and they may not have nuclear ICBMs. It's that simple. I would want the Chinese to have their fellow communist neighbor, buffer, and trading partner. As far as I am concerned, nothing changes.... except the nukes. The nukes in NK's hands must go.

 

No, I saw that. I know you did too and saw no need to rub it in.

I am questioning your Chinese expertise the notion that the government holds press conferences and "talks to the media" is just silly.

I question your "facts" that the Chinese officials are "laughing" at Trump.

I question your analysis and suggest that it is motivated ay animus, not any real understanding o the situation.

BTW, it really undercuts your complaint about personal attacks when you respond in kind. Not that my questioning your expertise and pointing out your manifest lack of understanding constitutes a personal attack in the first place.

 

It is unlikely that there would be any significant long term effect on trade, except that the Chinese will continue to diversify their trade relationships, which is already happening. The US economy is too dependent on cheap Chinese goods and the US governement (particularly conservatives) are too addicted to Chinese debt.

I'm not exaggerating by much. Outside the narrow cable TV world of US news, people in Australia are reading about Chinese intelligence hacks of government servers and attempts to influence elections. CNOC is making huge moves in the area. The Chinese are building a giant container facility in Jubuti(sic).


Since Donald Trump didn't have the slightest idea what the TPP was when he repudiated it, it may be a while before someone appears in the White House with enough knowledge or sense to tell the Clown Prince that he made a significant strategic blunder.
"The South Koreans are not inclined to be anti Chinese"..........Really? You may want to acquaint youself with a little history.

Cablegate? I had to look it up. And, nothing in what I saw substantiated your claim.

"Very different scenarios."

Really, has the Yalu River moved?

 

Good grief. If Trump had made no attempt at all to blow sunshine up China's ass in an attempt to manage Kim Jong Un, you'd have criticized him for lack of effort.

What, exactly, do you propose Trump do? What Obama did?

Oh, Obama did nothing, but you had no harsh words for that lack of effort. He didn't try at all, did he? Or are you going to admit that there is nothing that can be done other than being very friendly and hoping that the influence of the schmoozing attempt was at least worth the effort to try?

No. This is just another vacuous Trump bashing thread.

 

Well, I agree, but ultimately the Chinese are the ones who will have to apply the restrait.

Dispite the rantings of Trump types here who do not seem to understand the history of own a map, the US does not have the power to drive that decision, short of a covert operation, which is very, very, very high risk diplomatically.

I would not trust the Clown Prince or any of his minions to execute such a move with any real planning or discipline. Nor would I count on them to articulate any sort of long term policy in its wake either (since they don't seem to be able to articulate policy on anything else).

 

This is nonsense. If you want a bull in a China shop to complain about, how come you're not identifying China as that bull? They're screwing with an island in contested waters in the South China Sea! And you have the temerity to squawk about Trump's attempt to be friendly and engaging first?

Your knee jerk TDS can pound sand.

 

Everyone - but you - knows that @Jimmy79 was responding to your OP.

Obviously your OP was a blatant attempt to pat yourself on the back. Obviously. And now you bother to attempt to deny it?

Laughable.

You were attempting to puff yourself up by crowing that you were correct about predicting that Trump's attempt with China would fail.

Bravo. You made a 98% call. Good 'un.

 

You're making crap up. I see no one who thinks that the situation with NK doesn't run through China. Trump tried to influence China, and it hasn't seemed to work to this point.

But I do wonder: what harm was there in Trump handling it the way he did? What did Obama do?

 

I'll tell you what is suggests to me: that China seeks a better way to control NK; may have seen KJU's half-brother as a means to that end, and that Kim Jong Un viewed his own half-brother as a threat to his own life, and killed him pre-emptively to avoid any attempt to infiltrate his Government.

 

Really, there seem to be several people on this thread who seem to think they can ignore the cosequences of anything the US might do unilaterally. One of them seemed to think that China wouldn't mind US troops on the Yalu River. I didn't make that up.

 

That is what happens when you make an assumption. I thank you for correcting me.

 

Well, we both know China would mind. But, again, that was a euphemism for a strong American presence on the Korean Peninsula. They don't want Western forces from occupying the north, and the Kim government is preventing that.

Because of that, how much cooperation we will get from China in terms of restraining N.K. is in serious question. They often give lip service to a diplomatic effort to avoid confrontation. We need to look for results, not talk.

 

It's actually a longstanding American assumption to look at the Chinese and Vietnamese as a single bloc. I think it's part of an American tendency to ideologize everything. They're Communists, therefore...

One of the great tragedies of American foreign policy was that Ho Chi Minh become an enemy where he should have been an ally. We were scared of "Communists" when that was never our real fear, our real fear was the USSR.

Nixon and Kissinger finally got past that hurdle, but they stumbled over a dozen more.

American foreign policy is unfocused and chaotic.

 

Correct, in a sense. He was leverage they had over Kimmie. Kimmie managed to wrestle it from them.

 

To ensure that Regime Change was successful and that no other lunatics gained power, a brief occupation would be necessary.

There's no easy way to deal with North Korea short of military involvement. A naval blockade of North Korean ports would negatively affect North Korea's economy, but it wouldn't guarantee Regime Change.

 

After the Trump administration was trumpeting that China would help us rein in North Korea, I wrote this on May 30th.

Trump said, "North Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor, China, by shooting off yet another ballistic missile...but China is trying hard!"

That's a two part sentence and Trump was wrong in both parts.

China has been North Korea's ally since North Korea was founded 72 years ago. China is North Korea's major trading partner. 67 years ago Chinese forces attacked American forces in defense of North Korea. North Korea poses a threat to Japan, our strongest ally in Northeast Asia. North Korea wants a nuclear-tipped ICBM so it can hit the West Coast.

I continued.

Trump, Tillerson, Mattis, and others close to Trump keep saying China is "trying hard" to help the United States when it comes to China's ally, North Korea. They keep saying it, but they never give us the particulars. How is China helping us? No one in the Trump administration is saying. Which suggests China is not helping very much, and that appears closer to the truth, given the circumstances.

Later we learned China's embargo of North Korean coal was a ruse. China is buying materials from North Korea that is on the sanctions list. Trade between China and North Korea is up 34%. Trump had hoped that China would use trade and other measures to stop North Korea's provocative activities. That was not going to happen.

That was three weeks ago. What is happening now? The Trump administration is learning what I knew on May 30th. I will let Reuters tell it.

"The United States pressed China to exert more economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea to help rein in its nuclear and missile programs during a round of high-level talks in Washington on Wednesday."

“We reiterated to China that they have a diplomatic responsibility to exert much greater economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime if they want to prevent further escalation in the region,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters at a joint news conference with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

This is interesting. When is our secretary of state going to learn the U.S. is not in a position to tell China what their "diplomatic responsibilities" are? We must learn to deal with China as equals, and not from the standpoint of assumed superiority. The latter treatment prompts a good laugh from Chinese officials.

"Tillerson urged China to help crack down on illicit North Korean activities that fund its nuclear and missile programs, and said the Chinese had agreed their companies "should not do business" with sanctioned North Korean entities." Strange how we always hear what the Trump administration wants China to do but we never hear anything from China.

Now I get to the really interesting part.

President Donald Trump said Chinese efforts to use its leverage with Pyongyang had failed.

I want to laugh. To say that moronic, self-serving statement is presumptuous is an understatement. To say that statement reflects a profound lack of understanding of Sino/American relations is an understatement. To say that statement shows a remarkable ignorance of the relationship between the United States and China is an understatement.

Beyond that, I have no words.

 

Looks like you ran out of words even before that.

I commend your attempt at a Ciceronian triplet, but the last two sentences are just rewordings of each other. The triplet falls flat.

Of course it is all just bluster, anyway. As if you had any insight into Sino/American relations ...

 

Overall, though, you agreed with me since that was all you can say.

Trying to get China to help us with North Korea was always a fantasy on Trump's part. China loves the turmoil N. K. is causing in the U..S.

Finally Trump realizes this. "Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40 percent in the first quarter. So much for China working with us…," Trump wrote in a tweet Wednesday.

On May 31, I wrote, "In addition, McKelway reported that China's embargo of North Korean coal was a ruse. China is buying materials from N.K. that is on the sanctions list. Trade between China and N.K. is up 34%. A clip showed Haley, our U.N. ambassador, saying that the U.S. hopes China will use trade and other measures to stop N.K.'s provocative activities. McKelway reported that most experts agreed that was not going to happen."

Trump just heard about it. Yikes!

 

Are you suggesting a preemptive war with North Korea?

 

China would love that, huh?

Cause real turmoil in the US and millions of refugees across the Yalu river.

 

You didn't answer the question. Earlier, you said, "There's no easy way to deal with North Korea short of military involvement." I asked you to put up or shut up.

You decided to shut up, I guess.

Fortunately, SecDef James Mattis disagrees with you. He said, “I do not believe this capability in itself brings us close to war,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday. He added that U.S. “self-restraint” had prevented conflict and that “diplomatic efforts remain underway.”

Mattis knows Kim is bluffing. Kim won't risk war with the U.S. He just wants to be respected. We may have to accept a North Korea with a nuclear-tipped ICBM, just as we accept nuclear weapons in the hands of Russia, China, India, and Pakistan.

 

I don't remember saying that. Perhaps you have me confused with somebody else. The truth of the matter is I have no idea of a good, let alone the easiest, way to deal with NK.

[I was right, it was Mircea who said that. I did butt into the conversation, though. I wonder what it is you would have Mircea "put up."]

I just questioned your China Watcher expertise, of which I am still highly skeptical, btw.

I also have my doubts on your expertise on NK leadership, as well. But I am reassured by your knowledge that Kim is bluffing.

 

Why not? China won't intervene and neither will Russia. Destroy North Korea's nuclear infrastructure, depose Kim, let the North Korean people choose their form of government in a referendum, help them write a new constitution and then guide them through elections. That could be done in less than a year.