North Korean nuclear crisis / China should pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions
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Position: China should pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions
This position addresses the topic North Korean nuclear crisis.
For this position
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"Cutting Kim's lifeline, at least temporarily, might sound draconian. Many of North Korea's 23 million people could starve. But the masses are already starving. Some reportedly subsist on tree bark. Food aid and goods, as in other totalitarian regimes, tend to go to the elite, including Kim." | 
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From North Korea's nuclear test puts onus on China, S. Korea, by USA Today editorial board (USA Today, October 9, 2006) (view)
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"The dangers are very real. What’s needed now is real pressure and real diplomacy to get the North out of the nuclear weapons business — preferably before a nuclear test shows potential buyers just how well its weapons work." |
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From North Korea and the Dominoes, by The New York Times editorial board (The New York Times, October 6, 2006) (view)
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"Beijing is now urging the wider world not to overreact to Mr Kim’s latest provocation. Given his taste for dangerous theatrics, this may be sound advice — but only if it is accompanied, privately if necessary, by unambigious signals that to proceed with a test would jeopardise the one outside relationship on which North Korea depends." |
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"It follows that the South Korean and Chinese governments ought to be leading the effort to stop North Korea from going forward. They, more than the United States or the United Nations, have the means to exert pressure." |
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From Answering North Korea, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, October 5, 2006) (view)
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"But if it is within China's power to rescue or destroy Kim, then how, exactly, did North Korea's nuclear weapons program become in any sense the responsibility of the United States? Unlike China, the United States has no diplomatic levers it can use in North Korea, no trade relations of any significance and certainly no shared border." |
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"The five countries that have tried to bargain with North Korea over its nuclear program -- China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States -- could have stopped the North Korean program and could reverse it still: Among them they have the capacity to force the collapse of the Kim Jong Il dictatorship. A similar coalition probably could stop Iran. But to do so, nuclear counterproliferation has to become those governments' highest priority." |
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From Nukes and More Nukes, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, October 15, 2006) (view)
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"Just as the Soviet Union once propped up Fidel Castro's Cuba economically, so now does the Chinese government prop up North Korea. China now provides North Korea on a heavily subsidized basis with much of the food and energy it needs. To withdraw this aid would be to both starve and freeze a wide swath of the North Korean population and trigger a political implosion." |
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From Only China, not U.S., can rein in N. Korea, by Peter Navarro (Chicago Tribune, October 12, 2006) (view)
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"North Korea is not demanding bilateral talks for any legitimate reason. Rather, it's attempting to create a win-win situation for itself. Either the U.S. agrees to biliateral talks, thus increasing the likelihood that the most important player -- China -- will pull out of the process (or, short of that, feel a lack of investment in it). Or North Korea can blame the U.S. for the stalemate." |
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"The U.S. is already reducing its troop levels on the Korean peninsula; it should accelerate the process and move rapidly toward ending its military presence. Moreover, it should negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea. This will remove Pyongyang's motive to attack U.S. interests" |
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From North Korea Isn't Our Problem, by Anatol Lieven, John Hulsman (Los Angeles Times, October 11, 2006) (view)
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"At a bare minimum, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea need to be on the same page - that is, willing to impose draconian sanctions on Pyongyang until its nuclear adventure has ended, and to respond with appropriate force if the North lashes out in response." |
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"When told they were enabling their neighbor’s nuclear ambitions, Chinese diplomats blithely insisted that the North was likely bluffing about having a weapon. Now, Washington, Tokyo, Moscow and others have to make clear that China will be judged by its willingness to confront this problem. The Security Council must also make clear that it is still demanding the complete dismantlement of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. For that, negotiations are the only hope." |
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From North Korea and the Bomb, by The New York Times editorial board (The New York Times, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"For too long, China has baulked at "destabilising" North Korea for fear of an exodus of Koreans seeking refuge in China and the eventual creation of a united Korea allied to the US. Chinese leaders must now accept that Mr Kim's regime, especially when armed with nuclear weapons, is itself unstable, as well as being a destabilising force in the region." |
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From Pyongyang's act of irresponsibility, by Financial Times editorial board (Financial Times, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"Chinese officials are said to roll their eyes in private at North Korean intransigence and to downplay their influence over Kim. Their act isn't terribly convincing. China is North Korea's last friend and ally and its biggest supplier of food and fuel. In 2003, it briefly shut off gas pipelines to make the point that Pyongyang had better agree to six-party negotiations over nuclear disarmament." |
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From Kim Jong Il's Challenge to China, by Los Angeles Times editorial board (Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"South Korea and especially China should rethink appeasement. It has failed. A full cut-off of energy supplies and foreign aid would help pressure Kim Jong Il. Opening the Chinese border to North Korean refugees would do so as well. Most important, the world should tighten the screws it already has in place, with success, on the North's external financial accounts. No dictator can run a rogue state without money." |
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From North Korea's Nukes, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board (The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"In the absence of workable military options, the United States probably cannot force North Korea to give up its bomb, nor can the United States overturn the regime. The real leverage lies with South Korea and China. Without their continued material support, and their insistence on shutting their borders to the North's desperate people, the Kim regime could not survive for long." |
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From Responding to North Korea, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"China's condemnation this week of North Korea's "brazen" actions is rhetorically appropriate, but it's time for China to start supporting tough actions -- beginning with sanctions in the U.N. Security Council." |
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From The defiant one, by The Washington Times editorial board (The Washington Times, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"But negotiations make no sense if your negotiating partner is using them only as delaying tactic, or as a way to demonstrate your weakness, or as a means to get concessions that it will pocket while never living up to its promises. North Korea arguably represents a trifecta." |
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"North Korea will be encouraged if the United Nations fails to respond with much more severe military sanctions than it has already imposed on the regime. But even if the UN tries to fit North Korea for a noose, it will fail unless China fully backs the effort." |
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"Washington should assure Beijing that, if China subverts Kim's government, the United States will withdraw its forces and end its alliance with South Korea. That alliance is a wasting asset. Increasingly, Seoul aligns its foreign policy with that of Beijing rather than Washington, so it is long past time for an amicable divorce." |
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From Chinese must pluck Kim from nuke perch, by Ted Galen Carpenter (New York Daily News, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"But the construction of a workable replacement depends above all on Beijing. Betrayed by its former puppet, China must now forget past squabbles and stand shoulder to shoulder with Japan and America." |
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From China must rein in North Korea, by The Daily Telegraph editorial board (The Daily Telegraph, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"China's worries about its neighbor collapsing may be real, but the danger posed by this mad regime -- which one day could sell nuclear weaponry to terrorists -- must be harshly addressed. The time for Chinese hand-holding is over." |
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From China must help pressure N. Korea to abandon nukes, by Chicago Sun-Times editorial board (Chicago Sun-Times, October 10, 2006) (view)
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"China has feared to apply such pressure, worried that it could collapse Kim Jong-il's regime altogether -- an accurate assessment of the regime's limited staying power. Nonetheless, the effect of Chinese reticence has been to preserve Kim and his nuclear program. It is vital that China know this policy is no longer viable." |
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From Salvaging Our North Korea Policy, by John Bolton (The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2008) (view)
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"First, instead of backing off, the president should authorize the imposition of further financial sanctions on the North. He should also quietly tell Beijing that, unless it is willing to clean its own house, the U.S. government will follow the money trail of North Korea's counterfeiting and smuggling wherever it leads, even if this means going after banks, front companies, and individuals in China." |
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From Not too Late to Curb Dear Leader, by Dan Blumenthal, Aaron Friedberg (The Weekly Standard, February 5, 2007) (view)
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"In fact the best option the Bush administration now has is to work with such allies as Japan to raise the economic pressure on North Korea as much as is possible. Diplomacy is best focused not on Pyongyang, but on Beijing -- which needs to be convinced that the stability it says it seeks in Asia, and in its relations with the United States, depends on its willingness to bring real pressure to bear on North Korea." |
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From North Korea's Pass, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, December 31, 2006) (view)
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