August 2017

On August 9, U.S. President Donald Trump warned North Korea that if it does not stop threatening the United States, it will be “met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.” Just hours later, the North Korean army said in a statement that it is “carefully examining” a plan to strike the waters around Guam, a U.S. Pacific territory which hosts a large American military base. And while it’s unclear if Pyongyang was responding to Trump’s comments, or whether both countries are engaged mainly in a battle of inflammatory rhetoric, the possibility of a military conflict between the United States and North Korea now appears more likely than it has been in decades. As it often does in moments of high tension, China’s Foreign Ministry called on all relevant parties to avoid the possibility of intensifying conflict or “escalating the situation with words or actions” and continue to pursue a “political solution.” Should tensions between the U.S. and North Korea continue to worsen, or in the still unlikely event of a military conflict, what is China likely to do and what should it do?