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China-US Relationship and North Korea Missile Threat

  • August 16, 2017
  • By Pete Nisbet
  • 0

The China-US relationship has cooled somewhat and North Korea could be a reason. It is imperative that the US cooperate with China over the North Korea situation. It is important to the US that they can reach a common goal with China with regard to North Korea. This leads to a very fine balancing act between Trump’s need to work with China to solve the North Korean problem and his ‘America First’ policy with regard to trade. This issue is vital to the China-US relationship in general – which is becoming rather rocky.

China-US Relationship

China-US Trade Relationship Issues

The China-US trade relationship is also going through a difficult phase. It’s not just the issues we recently reported regarding intellectual property theft. Neither is it the issue of China selling cheap imitations of US brands in the US and China (and no doubt elsewhere). There is also a political reason for the current coolness between the two countries. President Trump is dissatisfied with China’s apparent inability to control the posturing of North Korea.

 

Donald Trump is currently considering applying sanctions to China because of the intellectual property theft. Beijing has stated that it will “not sit idle” if Trump decides to take such sanctions against China. The feeling in the East is that Trump’s threat is an outdated one that does nothing to improve trade between the two countries. They claim that such investigations were common in the 1980’s and 1990s, but not now.

Is the WTO Dispute Procedure Being Ignored?

There is now a binding WTO (World Trade Organization) dispute procedure to follow. The US had prompted such a system of resolving trade issues, yet is not using it. According to Deborah Elms from the Asian Trade Centre, the US to wants to forget it. Ms. Elms says that if the US ignores this dispute system, then other countries might also be tempted to ignore it and act unilaterally.

 

China will not simply wait and let things happen. It was stated that China will not sit back idle if the US takes any action that may harm the bilateral trade agreement between them. A Xinhua News Agency notes that Trump’s action was ‘outdated’ and that politicizing trade would ‘poison the overall China-US relationship.

North Korea Threat to China-US Relationship

Trade issues aside, however, North Korea is the elephant in the room. The belligerency of China’s neighbor is upsetting Trump personally, and he wants China to intervene. Amy military action against North Korea could be construed as also being against China.  It is an extremely dangerous situation.

 

Pyongyang seems to have backed slightly regarding its missile threat to Guam, cooling the rhetoric slightly. However, the overall threat is still there and China is in a difficult situation. It has a very noisy neighbor while trying to trade with a noisy president. It is attempting to cool the ambitions of one while satisfying the needs of the other. China has often been associated with wisdom. It will be a very wise person who can keep this China-US relationship sweet.

About Pete Nisbet

Pete has been working in the field of website design and content for many years. He has a great interest in technology and current affairs, particularly business affairs. Pete's interests are technology, writing and world affairs and he is widely traveled. Pete also holds an Honors BSc from the University of Edinburgh.