In this photo provided by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, and his wife Peng Liyuan, center right, wave as they arrive at the international airport in Macau, south China, Friday, Dec. 19, 2014. Chinese President Xi is in Macau to attend celebrations marking the 15th anniversary of its return to China which falls on Saturday, Xinhua reported. (Xinhua, Cheong Kam Ka)
Tom Phillips, The Guardian: China is angry, but what can it do about North Korea?
Xi Jinping has few options to bring Kim Jong-un into line but he also has to contend with the unpredictable Donald Trump
On Friday afternoon, the eve of North Korea’s most powerful ever nuclear test, China’s football-loving president received a gift from the world’s greatest ever player.
“Good luck,” read the handwritten message from Pelé on a canary yellow Brazil jersey handed to Xi Jinping by his South American counterpart, Michel Temer.
Xi needs it. Experts say Kim Jong-un’s latest provocation – which some believe was deliberately timed to upstage the start of the annual Brics summit in China – exposes not only the scale of the North Korean challenge now facing China’s president but also his dearth of options.
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WNU Editor: The Chinese are not concerned about an unpredictable Donald Trump .... on this issue President Trump has been very blunt and straightforward on what he believes needs to be done on North Korea (complete and total sanctions). The problem is that the Chinese gave him assurances when President Xi and President Trump met in April that their approach will succeed in reigning in North Korea, and what they needed was time and patience from President Trump to accomplish it (they requested 100 days .... which President Trump gave them) .... Report: Chinese President Xi Asked For A '100-Day Grace Period' On North Korea (May 22, 2017). Where the Chinese failed is that they overestimated how much North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un trusted them (he does not trust them at all), and their belief that they could resolve the crisis through diplomacy and minor economic sanctions (which only unleashed Kim Jong-Un to accelerate his nuclear and missile programs). The end result .... a nuclear test .... and probably a hydrogen-bomb test at that. And for Chinese President Xi .... this has become a major Chinese foreign policy disaster, and (more important to him) a loss of face to the American President. And all of this happening with the BRIC summit underway right now at Xiamen (Fujian, China), and ahead of the big Chinese Communist Party Conference (that happens every 5 years) next month in Beijing where his opponents now have something to chew on. Chinese President Xi is not angry .... oh no ... he is not angry at all. He and his allies are f___ing furious.
