US and China still not on the same page over N Korea
Add BT as a preferred sourceUS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday concluded a trip to Beijing to discuss the next steps on North Korea. His visit, which paves the way for Donald Trump's trip in November, had one over-riding goal - to try to bring Beijing on board the US approach toward tightening screws on Pyongyang.
US-China disagreements over North Korea have softened lately, with Beijing - which accounts for some 90 per cent of its neighbour's foreign trade - apparently increasingly willing to tighten sanctions. Yet, for all this clamping down, Beijing still has key differences with Washington over handling the hermit kingdom.
A key reason China differs with the US over the scope and severity of actions, including potential military action, reflects the fact that it does not want to push the regime so hard that it becomes significantly destabilised. From the vantage point of Chinese officials, this risks North Korea behaving even more unpredictably, and/ or the outside possibility of the regime's collapse.
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