President Trump meets in February with China’s vice premier, Liu He, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer in the Oval Office. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)President Trump’s brinkmanship with China this week represents a test of his administration’s tougher foreign policy toward the East Asian power as he seeks to clinch a hard-fought trade deal while preserving Beijing’s cooperation on North Korea. The specter of escalating tensions illustrated the risks of Trump’s China strategy as he has simultaneously pursued denuclearization talks with North Korea, which have rested in part on Beijing’s enforcement of sweeping inter­national economic sanctions on its neighbor. On North Korea, the Chinese, alarmed by an increase in ballistic missile tests from Pyongyang in 2017, responded to Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign by ramping up sanctions enforcement. “If you see it as a zero-sum game and a war of all against all,” the aide said, “the price and salience of North Korea increases for China.”Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.

Source: Washington Post May 07, 2019 22:52 UTC