On November 19, Markus Garlauskas, the former US National Intelligence Officer for North Korea and nonresident senior fellow with the Asia Security Initiative, was quoted in an article on The Economist on what the US could expect out of China’s pressure towards North Korea. He expressed that pressing North Korea to stop testing its most dangerous weapons is the most Washington could expect Beijing to do, and that could be the thin basis for co-operation between the US and China.
“We have reached a natural limit in terms of what we can get out of China on North Korea,” says Mr Garlauskas, now with the Atlantic Council, a think-tank. Pressing North Korea to stop testing its most dangerous weapons is probably the most that China will do, he suggests by telephone from Washington. A moratorium on tests is not nothing: a new model of icbm is not credible until it has flown. But pausing tests alone is a thin basis for co-operation with China.”
