An ICBM that only reaches a few inhabitants

North Korea claims that it has launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, which experts say could have the ability to reach Alaska.

Regarding Ricky's posts on Chinese economic leverage, he's confused. Yes, the Chinese can create shocks to the west's financial system. But it is a lot easier to reallocate capital than it is to close factories that employ over 100 million people. The US has much more economic leverage

China regards stability on the Korean peninsula as its primary interest. Its support for North Korea ensures a friendly nation on its northeastern border and provides a buffer between China and the democratic South, which is home to around twenty-nine thousand U.S. troops and marines. “Chinese leaders have no love for Kim Jong-un’s regime or its nuclear weapons, but it dislikes even more the prospect of North Korea’s collapse and the unification of the Korean Peninsula with Seoul as the capital,” writes CFR President Richard N. Haass.

Beijing has consistently urged world powers not to push Pyongyang too hard, for fear of precipitating regime collapse and triggering dangerous military action. “Once a war really happens, the result will be nothing but multiple loss. No one can become a winner,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in April 2017, urging the United States and North Korea to show restraint.

The specter of hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees flooding into China is also a huge worry for Beijing. “Instability generated on the peninsula could cascade into China, making China’s challenge of providing for its own people that much more difficult,” says Mike Mullen, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. The refugee issue is already a problem for China: Beijing’s promise to repatriate North Koreans escaping across the border has consistently triggered condemnation from human rights groups. Beijing began constructing a barbed-wire fence more than a decade ago to prevent migrants from crossing, but the International Rescue Committee estimates thirty to sixty thousand North Korean refugees live in China, though some nongovernmental organizations believe the total to be more than two hundred thousand. The majority of refugees first make their way to China before moving to other parts of Asia, including South Korea. However, tightened border controls under Kim Jong-un have decreased the outflow of refugees.

Though Beijing favors a stable relationship with Pyongyang, it has also sought to bolster its relations with Seoul in the South. China’s Xi Jinping met several times with now ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye, while he has yet to visit or receive the North’s Kim. China was the destination for a quarter of South Korea’s exports in 2016, amounting to $124 million, but recently China has taken retaliatory measures against South Korean businesses to oppose the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea’s eastern province of North Gyeongsang.

Experts say China has also been ambivalent on the question of its commitment to defend North Korea in case of military conflict. The 1961 Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance says China is obliged to intervene against unprovoked aggression. But Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the Chinese government has tried to persuade North Korean leaders to revoke the clause that would force Beijing to come to Pyongyang’s defense. Beijing has also said if conflict is initiated by Pyongyang it would not abide by its treaty obligation.

Does it? On the one hand the Trump administration is threatening Chinese steel exports, and on the other they want China to intervene in North Korea...
A lot of actors around the world are confused by Trump. Including his own staff apparently, as his priorities and positions change on his whim.

freeman3 wrote:I have not forgotten that you predicted I would turn into a Republican when I got older...or did you predict that, I guess I'm not 100% certain about that. Anyway, there is no danger in my turning into a Republican--I'll always be liberal-- but I would like to think that I'm not one to toe any party line, whatever line that may be. I try to look at issues with an open mind and call them as I see them and I am particularly concerned about being fair to people whatever their background. Of course I am sure I apt to see things through the confirmation bias all people have, but I would like to think I am open to changing my mind on issues if the facts on the ground dictate it.

Uh, Anchorage, Alaska has 300,000 has inhabitants. Are you counting that as a few?

The carrot does not work that well...if the other side senses there is no stick behind it.

I agree that Trumps approach is very hard on our allies. But you are changing the subject. We are going to go after more Chinese banks that enable North Korea. If Canada doesn't join in we'll have to go it alone

The Justice Department, in a federal-court case that was partly unsealed last week, pointed to “offshore U.S. dollar accounts” associated with a network of five companies linked to Chinese national Chi Yupeng. That included one of the largest importers of North Korean goods into China, Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Material Co.
Citing sources that included
two North Korean defectors, the Justice Department said the socalled Chi Yupeng network hid transactions that helped finance North Korea’s military and arms programs.
That network isn’t under U.S. sanctions but analysts say it is a vital source of funds that can be choked off, in the same way the U.S. targeted another Chinese firm late last year, Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co. Ltd.

There was nothing wrong with Obama's red line. He just should have followed through.

The carrot does not work that well...if the other side senses there is no stick behind it.

The US will be forced to develop a lot of its manufacturing from scratch and redevelop trade ties and its financial strength from scratch after the Chinese economic blitzkreig.

I think both sides have a lot to lose, but China has way more to lose, and they know it.

rickyp wrote:rayjay

I think both sides have a lot to lose, but China has way more to lose, and they know it.

It may well be that China would lose long term... I don't think they need to worry about long term though.
The US is a democracy that is largely influenced by corporate money. (We won't use the label oligarchy, but the US domestic politics is far more responsive to corporate money than other democracies). And those in the US hurt by the initial effects of a trade war will lobby their government very hard. When its US corporations, banks and other internationals suffering the lobbying will be loud and long and effective. I doubt any US government would survive the domestic political fall out from a full on trade war. Too many hurt in the collateral damage.
China, on the other hand, is authoritarian. Although they eventually have to respond to the needs of the populace to survive politically , a four or 5 year trade war would not be politically dangerous for them.

Meanwhile the EU and others would eat up much of the trade with China that the US eschews. (You can bet Canada and Australia would step in on a lot of the agricultural trade. No problem.) And those relationships would also survive a short term US/China trade war. China would bounce back. The US, probably not so much.

Still better not to risk this kind of response... Talk. Give China what they want which is for the US to talk to NK and offer them some fig leaf they can wave like a large banner...

Democracy is the most stable political system.

All authoritarian governments are in danger of regime change

No one is advocating trade war. I'm just saying we should use our economic, military, and cultural leverage.

freeman3 wrote:I think RJ hit the nail on the head and why I had such a problem with Ricky's analysis and to a lesser extent Dags (who I have trouble figuring out where his position is). You can't just look at your own downside when thinking any option without considering how your opponent is looking at their downside as well. There is a story that General Ulysses Grant relates about early in the war he was fretting over attacking a Confederate position and when he finally did so he found that the Confederates had panicked and abandoned their position. And he realized that the Confederate general was just as scared about his intentions as he had been of the Confederates. And that changed his fundamental outlook on how to conduct war.

We're the most powerful economic and military country on earth...and yet in foreign policy it's our downside that tends to get emphasized rather than considering the downside of the countries we are dealing with. We need to look at their downside too.

We're the most powerful economic and military country on earth...and yet in foreign policy it's our downside that tends to get emphasized rather than considering the downside of the countries we are dealing with. We need to look at their downside too.