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China and Russia have counseled restraint to de-escalate the crisis over North Korea, as the United States ratchets up its pressure on Pyongyang. Following a successful hydrogen bomb test by the North on Sunday, the U.S. administration is urging the U.N. Security Council to impose “the strongest possible measures.”
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U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, was “begging for war," adding that "enough is enough" and warning that Washington would introduce a Security Council resolution tightening sanctions on Pyongyang.
In response, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya urged the "need to maintain a cool head and refrain from any action that can escalate tensions," noting that while the U.S.-initiated draft resolution hasn't yet been circulated or analyzed, the imposition of further sanctions – rather than dialogue – would have a negligible effect on North Korea and would fail to defuse the situation on the Korean peninsula.
"We have already said that the sanction resource of pressure on North Korea has been practically exhausted," the Russian diplomat said. "Our goal is to settle the Korean peninsula problem. I am not sure another package of sanctions can reach this goal bearing in mind that a rather tough sanction resolution 2371 was passed by consensus just a month ago but has not yet been fully implemented."
Meanwhile, South Korea has conducted military drills that included F-15K fighter jet flights, surface-to-surface ballistic missile launches and the deployment of four THAAD launch pads on the Korean peninsula, authorities in Seoul confirmed.
According to the White House, President Donald Trump gave his "conceptual approval" to South Korea to allow it to purchase billions of dollars in weapons from Washington while approving "in principle" the removal of restrictions on Seoul's missile payload capabilities.
Earlier in the day, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo disclosed that during talks last week with U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis at the Pentagon, the two discussed the possible deployment an additional aircraft carrier and more bombers to the highly-militarized region, as well as the potential redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to the region.
The U.S. had stationed approximately 100 nuclear-armed weapons in South Korea until 1991, when the then-President George H.W. Bush unilaterally withdrew all naval and land-based nuclear weapons. A little over one month later, Seoul issued its own Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Haley flatly rejected as “insulting” China and Russia's proposal that the U.S. and its junior regional partners Japan and South Korea suspend ongoing large-scale military drills on the Korean peninsula in exchange for North Korea ending its nuclear and missile programs. Liu Jeiyi, China's ambassador to the U.N., had promoted the China-Russia "freeze for freeze" plan as both "practical and feasible."
"Washington needs to accept the fact that it does not hold absolute authority over the world," Communist Party of China-run newspaper Global Times said in an unsigned editorial. "North Korea, despite its weak strength, could confront the US for reasons America does not understand. Flexing muscles will not intimidate Pyongyang. Washington needs patience to untie the deadlock."
"If the U.S. is not able to tame North Korea, how can it force big powers such as China and Russia to yield to its demands through sanctions and deterrence? Washington needs to update its knowledge of international relations and accept a diversified world. This way, it can have the rationality that matches a world leader, a position it desires," added the paper, which is seen as projecting Beijing's views in a less diplomatic and more caustic manner.
In response to Seoul's insistence on deploying the U.S.-made THAAD missile defense, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov announced that his country may augment its own missile presence in the region.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to CNN, has affirmed that he was already drafting a new round of tough sanctions against Pyongyang.
Haley also reiterated the White House threat announced on Trump's Twitter account to cut off trade with any countries that trade with North Korea, noting that "every country that does business with North Korea" would be seen "as a country that is giving aid to their reckless and dangerous nuclear intentions.”
Experts have scoffed at the former real estate mogul's proposal as hardly feasible and a likely bluff.
"China accounts for roughly 90% of North Korea’s trade, but the United States very much depends on China, their trade is huge, as is the U.S. trade deficit," head of the Center for Asian and Asian-Pacific Studies at Russia’s Institute for Strategic Studies Konstantin Kokarev told Russian news agency TASS.
"This is why any trade sanctions that Washington may impose on Beijing would bring disastrous consequences for the U.S. - the country may even lose its economic independence," the Russian expert added.
After the U.S.-led war on the Korean peninsula ended in a 1953 armistice, North Korea remains officially at war with the United States and South Korea, a status they have repeatedly urged the countries to resolve.
Experts see dialogue as the only possible way out of the crisis.
"Radical ways to resolve the North Korean issue, including possible strikes on the country and its elimination, which are currently under consideration in the United States, are a continuation of the war of words, only in a more acute form," Kokarev said, adding that it is imperative for the U.S. to "take into account the position of North Korea’s neighboring states, first and foremost, China and South Korea, as they will have to face a catastrophe in case such decisions (to wage war) are implemented."
"The ball is in the US court at the moment – Washington should understand that there is a need to stop the further escalation of the situation in the region, which particularly refers to large-scale military drills."
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