Donald Trump has consistently linked the North Korea issue with issues of China-US trade policy. As a result, China has become increasingly vocal in its disapproval of Trump’s tendency to meld the two issues together.
READ MORE: China SLAMS Donald Trump for trying to make North Korea a Chinese ‘problem’
I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
…they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
Today after a series of Trump Tweets again blaming China for America’s displeasure with North Korea, China’s Vice-Commerce Minister Qian Keming offered the following statement,
“We think the North Korea nuclear issue and China-US trade are issues that are in two completely different domains. They aren’t related. They should not be discussed together.
China will continue to work together with the international community to promote the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and China is also willing to work with the US side for more balanced development of the bilateral trade relationship”.
China is North Korea’s neighbour, and since the illegal collapse of the Soviet Union, China has been North Korea’s primary window to the wider world although North Korea’s economy is increasingly self-sufficient and looks set to continue along this trajectory.
North Korea is a sovereign state and China and Russia both respect and acknowledge this, it is only the United States which constantly treats the North Korean issue as though it is an issue of a Chinese protectorate. In this sense, North Korea is far more remote from China than is Chinese Taipei, also known as Taiwan. If the US has direct talks with the generally pro-western government of Chinese Taipei, surely on the sheer principles of sovereign foreign relations, the US ought to talk to North Korea which unlike Chinese Taipei is an unambiguously sovereign state as recognised by the United Nations.
By suggesting otherwise, the United States is insulting China, something which under Donald Trump has become increasingly par for the course.
As I wrote about Trump’s most recent encounter with China’s President Xi Jinping,
“For China, protocol is deeply important and referring to China by the self-styled name of a disputed province is deeply insulting.
Trump still doesn’t seem to fathom that bombing Syria while serving chocolate cake to the Chinese President was an insult. The America side also fails to realise that the fact that Mar-A-Lago was not big enough to house the Chinese delegation, forcing them to rent out a nearby hotel was also a gross oversight.
One could argue with some merit that Russia should be more public about private thoughts when countries like the United States insult Russia. This is a separate point and one worthy of discussion. However, the fact remains that China is publicly insulted by the United States when it refuses to treat its officials with dignity, refuses to acknowledge protocol and refuses to get very basic facts correct.
The idea that one needs to like everything about a country to engage with it respectfully is a western neurosis that only serves to make the western powers more isolated and disliked”.
READ MORE: The Trump administration continues to insult China–both by mistake and by design
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