I don’t know if Donald Trump can convince China to put the screws to their deranged lunatic neighbor, North Korea.
But maybe extensive damage to China itself will do the trick.
From Jeremy Page’s article in today’s Wall St. Journal:
BEIJING—China is amping up monitoring for signs of radioactive fallout from North Korea’s latest nuclear test, concerned that contamination could provoke a public outcry and force Beijing to harden its approach to Pyongyang, diplomats and analysts say.
Beijing put an extensive radiation-monitoring network on emergency level of operations Sunday, after sensors detected a 6.3-magnitude tremor from North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear test.
Minutes later, they registered a second, smaller tremor, possibly caused by a structural collapse. Nuclear and seismological experts said that underground atomic blasts can cause tunnels to collapse or terrain to shift, potentially allowing radiation to vent into the atmosphere.
Chinese government agencies said no radiation has been detected thus far but they will continue to test air, water and soil samples in a network of radiation-monitoring stations that has steadily expanded since 2013 and is due to grow by at least two more stations in the next few months.
If China doesn’t care about what kim jung-un’s lunacy might do to the USA, or Japan, or South Korea. But maybe it cares about what might happen to China itself.
Who is to say that the next nuclear test, or “gift to the USA” as North Korea’s UN ambassador snidely refers to it, won’t severely contaminate parts of eastern China – which, not at all incidentally, includes Shanghai and Beijing, the country’s capitol.
If I were advising the Trump administration, my suggestion would be to remind China of that very real possibility, early and often.
