Relations between Pyongyang and Washington, D.C. during the Trump administration and the attendant crises exist within a context that gives special place to Chinese regional and global ambition. Trump, echoing to a certain extent his predecessor, plays up the idea that inciting a more active Chinese role in addressing North Korean behavior will deliver American policy goals in the region.
Those goals in East Asia seem rather unclear however, particularly in light of Trump’s occasional forays back into his “America First” rhetoric. Meanwhile the incentives for Xi Jinping to disrupt the Korean status quo beyond some unspecified victory of American diplomacy are less obvious. Ultimately it seems Xi and Trump are largely joined in their desire that things simply do not get worse.
That approach is rooted in a Cold War conception of East Asian politics, somewhat fitting with the recent retro mood in American political discourse but apparently ignorant of the PRC’s post-Cold War realities. Xi’s “Chinese Dream” among many other things yearns for a clearly defined leadership role for his country on the global stage, with the openness to aggression in support of a revolutionary brother or any ability to bring him to heel now a relic of the Maoist Period. In North Korea Juche ideology lives on, giving Kim very little incentive to bend to pressure from either side of the illusory Chinese-American duumvirate. American hopes that Chinese inspiration might provide the key to this problem seem based on a misunderstanding of Xi’s inclinations and influence. It appears that the political leadership of the PRC is unwilling to prevail upon Kim Jong Un to reform his behavior. Perhaps they are not merely unwilling, but are unable.