Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer explained how he thought the United States could get China to act against the North Koreans for their nuclear ambitions.
According to Krauthammer, if China had to deal with the possibilities of Japan and South Korea acquiring nuclear weapons as well at the urging of the United States, it would be forced to do something regarding North Korea.
“The main culprit here is not Iran, the main culprit is China,” Krauthammer said. “I would give Obama a pass on this. I don’t think there’s anything he could have done that would have been different from what his predecessors did. In fact, I would argue that the Clinton and the Bush administrations made things worse, they fed the North Koreans, and they were hoodwinked into accepting all kinds of swaps and deals which were useless. At least Obama stayed out of it. We would have had no effect. The fact is that nothing that we can do is going to have any effect. We’re talking about sanctions. Would have no effect.”
“There’s only one way to affect what the North Koreans do and that is through China,” he added. “And China has no interest in squeezing off or strangling the regime. But China supplies the food and the fuel. How do we affect China? One way we could do it, with a simple statement from the United States: ‘It shall be the policy of the United States to look favorably upon Japan and South Korea acquiring a nuclear deterrent and that we would give whatever assistance is required.’ End of statement. I can assure you that will have an effect on China which is the only player here that matters.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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