US-China Trade War and North Korean Denuclearization

The U.S.-China trade war has become the present, not the future. While the U.S. aims to alleviate its enormous trade deficit by pressuring China, playing this political card also seems to be Donald Trump’s move to win the November midterm elections. It is also the United States’ long-term plan to prevent the rise of China, just as it had checked Germany and Japan in the past to maintain supremacy. So far, we have been watching the U.S.-China trade war with the false assumption that China may outdo the U.S. in the near future. Historically, however, hopes and expectations for a rapidly growing nation have often clouded our judgment and misled our view of reality.

Certainly, the U.S.-China trade war is a power game in which the U.S. is using force to crush competitors and protect its vested interests. Because Trump rose to the presidency pushing an “America First” policy, he seems to be using the pressure on China as a ticket to his re-election. Trump is pushing “America First” because opening up the U.S. market would only pave the way for China’s pursuit; he’s trying to restore his country’s political supremacy. On the other hand, China’s President Xi Jinping is beginning to realize his ambitions of the “Chinese Dream” during his second term, which also pushes for restoration of Chinese supremacy and clashes with the United States.

South Korea is currently only concerned about the impact of the U.S.-China trade war on our exports and the profits of our companies in China, but this should not be the case. Rather, more attention should be paid to its impact on North Korea and the international order in East Asia. President Trump’s true intentions for engaging in this trade war is primarily to gain political support for the November midterm elections and to control China with respect to the North Korean nuclear issue. President Trump is probably not looking to engage in a full-scale war with China. Even if the U.S. does win the trade war with China, the damage to his nation won’t be small, not to mention the negative impact it would have on his re-election. President Trump is likely to focus on strengthening his political position in the U.S.-China trade war and will at some point compromise. However, the atmosphere in the U.S. Congress and government has now settled on hardline policies toward China, making it difficult for Trump to compromise easily. U.S. public opinion is that China is not a partisan issue and both the Democratic and Republican Parties agree on the emerging challenges China is posing.

On the other hand, President Xi maintains that China cannot surrender to the United States. It would be more beneficial for China to end the trade war quickly, but doing so would weaken the justification for the Chinese Dream. His ambitious “Belt and Road” initiative to strengthen Chinese supremacy by building land-based and maritime silk roads is already failing from within; neither his own people nor the people of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, trust the idea. It is generally predicted that China cannot easily compromise with the United States.

The problem is that the more the U.S.-China war intensifies, the higher will be the value of North Korea to China. If President Trump’s pressure on China increases, China will scramble to pull North Korea to its side by opening the “back door” for North Korea. This would create a crack in the international sanctions designed to lead North Korea to denuclearization and would likely weaken Kim Jong Un’s resolve to denuclearize. Economic cooperation with China by itself can help North Korea’s gross domestic product rise from its baseline of 3-4 percent to 6-7 percent, which is what Kim is after. Therefore, South Korea needs to pay attention to the dynamics in East Asia and prepare various scenarios for its policy on North Korea.