Like Trump, China Has No Good North Korea Options: QuickTake Q&A

With few choices for curbing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, U.S. President Donald Trump appears focused on the same strategy employed by his predecessors: Pressure China to act against its unruly ally. That approach has failed in the past because China has long seen any potential solutions as worse for its security than the status quo. It’s unclear whether President Xi Jinping is revising those calculations with Trump in power.

While China says it also wants nuclear weapons purged from the Korean peninsula, the country has advocated diplomacy as the only way to achieve that goal. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi this month urged both sides to make conciliatory gestures as a way to revive talks. China’s approach has failed to gain traction, however: North Korea snubbed requests to meet top diplomats including Wang this month.