US-China disagreement likely to deepen

If the US-North Korea summit is canceled, China will be the country facing increased instability. Photo: Getty

The US and China have also been increasingly at odds over the South China Sea. This week, the Pentagon withdrew an invitation for China to participate in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise in Hawaii, and Beijing has stepped up pressure on Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Washington arms but Beijing claims as its own.

Analysts said that although Chinese state media called for Washington and Pyongyang to continue meeting, Trump's move could cause a split between China and the US over how to deal with North Korea and its nuclear weapons.

US President Donald Trump's decision to cancel a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatens to further strain US-China relations. Photo: AP

The move also inflames already-simmering trade tensions between the two countries, just days after China and the US pulled back from the brink of a bitter trade war.

“There are certainly many people in the US who want to use this as an excuse to push the relationship towards confrontation,” said Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University. “This is one of the lowest points in the relationship since the normalization of bilateral relations.”

China has long viewed North Korea as a strategically useful “buffer zone” between China and US forces in South Korea. But relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have fallen into a near diplomatic freeze in recent years, as Beijing supports UN sanctions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

However, China’s willingness to maintain pressure on its neighbor is fading. The Global Times newspaper said on May 25 that even if the US-North Korea summit is canceled, China should continue to improve relations with North Korea, given the North Korean leader’s commitment not to conduct missile and nuclear tests.

“China is actually acting as a tacit guarantor for the US-North Korea summit, so Beijing will continue to push for it to happen. If Pyongyang and Washington cannot sit down at the negotiating table, they will go to war,” said a North Korea expert at Jilin University in China.

Professor Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at Renmin University in Beijing and a government adviser on diplomatic issues, said: “If the US-North Korea summit is canceled, China will be the country facing increased instability.”

According to this expert, if President Trump resumes maximum pressure as well as military and economic threats against North Korea, China will face big problems.

Regarding US-China trade, while some analysts believe that China separates trade and North Korea issues because Beijing does not want to complicate things, some analysts believe that Beijing is using its advantage in the North Korea issue, as well as Mr. Trump's desire for a successful summit with Mr. Kim Jong-un, to "wear down the sharpest blade" of the US trade threat.

The collapse of the US-North Korea summit has added uncertainty to US-China trade relations, said the director of the China Institute for WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Analysts said the strained relationship could see Washington take a tougher stance on issues that appear sensitive in Beijing.