Washington Post: As Trump and North Korea’s Kim Spar, China Poses as the Responsible Actor

By Simon Denyar:

South Korea, not wanting perhaps to contemplate that possibility of rockets raining down on the Korean Peninsula, took a different view. Its Foreign Ministry said Trump in his tweet had issued a “clear warning” to North Korea that showed his awareness of the urgency of the threat — and that he will not waver from a policy of imposing sanctions.

“Because of our active outreach, President-elect Trump and U.S. officials are clearly aware of the gravity and urgency of the North Korean nuclear threat,” ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck told a briefing. “They are maintaining an unwavering stance on the need for sanctions on North Korea and for close cooperation between South Korea and the U.S.”

This also raises the issue of how much interpretation should be required for the tweets of what will soon be the most powerful man in the world.

Euan Graham, director of the international security program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, said the world was “on the slippery slope of trying to interpret one man’s not particularly coherent tweets.” But he added that the exchange has increased the chances that North Korea could be “the first crisis out of the box” in the Trump presidency, at least in Asia.

The Full Story (January 3, 2017)