MURDEROUS, thin-skinned and in possession of nuclear weapons, the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, has one good deed to his name: he has united America and China. Max Baucus, America’s ambassador to Beijing until January 2017, recalls the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, privately expressing “disgust” at Mr Kim’s reckless pursuit of nukes and missiles to carry them to other continents. Mr Xi’s frustration with North Korea’s hereditary despot stands out as “the strongest statement that I have ever heard Xi make”, says Mr Baucus. China has never sounded as closely aligned with America when it comes to using sanctions and diplomatic pressure, in a last-ditch bid to change how Mr Kim calculates his regime’s interests.
Breaking a long-standing taboo about imagining the Kim regime’s collapse, a well-connected Chinese academic, Jia Qingguo, was allowed to publish an essay in September suggesting that China, America and South Korea should discuss such contingencies as refugee...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2yJgTFP
EmoticonEmoticon