Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could use an upcoming trip to Asia to gauge Chinese interest in a military response to North Korea’s recent nuclear weapons program tests, according to the State Department.
“I think right now we’re focused on sanctions and implementing those sanctions to the fullest extent possible, but we’re looking at other possibilities as well,” acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner replied Tuesday when asked if Tillerson intended to discuss military options. “We always are.”
Tillerson’s trip, his first to the region, is being announced after North Korea fired a salvo of missiles towards Japan’s territorial waters as a protest of American and South Korean military exercises. Tillerson will have to defend the deployment of a missile defense battery in South Korea that China regards as a threat, but he has a larger goal consulting with Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean leaders about how to contain the North Korean nuclear weapons threat.
“The central focus of Secretary Tillerson’s trip to the region should not be on the deployment of [the missile defense battery] — which is frankly a response to the threat — it’s the threat itself,” Toner told reporters. “We’re looking at new initiatives, new ways to address it … [and] we’re pressing for increased implementation of an already very stringent sanctions regime. But as we all know and I’ve said many times, sanctions are only as good as how well they’re implemented. And so, until we have full implementation of the sanctions, we’re not going to be able to apply the pressure that we feel needs to be brought to bear on North Korea.”
China has long frustrated Western powers by allowing North Korea to circumvent, if only in part, the sanctions imposed by the United States and the United Nations. But North Korea’s recent spate of nuclear weapons program tests has motivated China to tighten the implementation of the most recent sanctions package.
“You’ve seen China in recent days take some steps with respect to coal imports that will enforce those sanctions in greater detail,” Toner acknowledged.
Tillerson will focus on “implementing those sanctions” during his trip, but Toner declined to rule out the possibility that he would try to rally Chinese support for military action against North Korea.
“I don’t want to get into specifics of all the options we’re looking at with respect to North Korea,” Toner said. “We are very concerned with the escalation of North Korea’s actions, the continuous testing and augmenting of its weapons program is of great concern and it’s getting to the point where we do need to look at other alternatives and that’s part of what this trip is about, that we’re going to talk to our allies and partners in the region to try to generate a new approach to North Korea.”
