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Will Taiwan Become a Bargaining Chip in Resolving the North Korean Question Between the US and China?

icon2017/03/23
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  Will Taiwan Become a Bargaining Chip in Resolving the North Korean Question Between the US and China?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

March 21, 2017

 Translation of an Except

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently embarked on his first East Asian tour since he took office. This was another high-ranking US officials visit to East Asia after US Defense Secretary James Mattis trip to Japan and South Korea. The difference is that the earlier Mattis visit to East Asia was a journey of "apology" to appease US Asian allies; this time Tillersons was a journey of containment aimed at imposing sanctions on North Korea.

During Tillersons visit, he never veered from the North Korean question. In Japan, he admitted that the United States failed in its North Korea policies for the past 20 years; in South Korea, he said that the United States "strategic patience" for the past years ended now; on Mainland China, he hoped the United States and China could join hands in resolving the North Korean question. This shows that the search for cooperation from Japan, South Korea and China in resolving the North Korean question was the principal object of Tillersons trip.

From the US perspective, the reason Kim Jong-uns regime has been able to be maintained, at the same time incessantly provoking with nuclear arms development, is mainly that China's economic sanctions against North Korea are not thorough enough. However, from Chinas perspective, since Kim Jong-un came to power, Beijing's control over North Korea is obviously not at par with the past, for this reason, North Korea has test-fired guided missiles again and again, giving the United States the pretext to deploy the THAAD system on the Korean Peninsula. Wang Yi said that the North Korean question is the political contradiction between the United States and North Korea; he hoped to return to the six-party talks to resolve the North Korean question through dialogue and consultations; we could see Chinas basic attitude from this statement.

In any case, the "North Korean question" has taken over from the "South China Sea question" to become the top issue to be resolved by the US and China. In his East Asian tour, although Tillerson could not persuade China to adopt stringent measures to jointly resolve the North Korean question, the acceleration of progression in resolving the North Korean question has become the common denominator between the United States and China. It may be expected that in the Trump-Xi Summit in April, the North Korean question will be the main axis of discussion.

As far as Taiwan is concerned, we must pay very close attention to the fact that the United States has realized that the shortcut to Pyongyang is going through Beijing, once the North Korean question is put on the negotiation table, will the Taiwan issue become a bargaining chip in the bilateral deal for imposing sanctions on North Korea?

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