As he was leaving the Oval Office, Barack Obama warned Donald Trump that nuclear-armed North Korea would be his most immediate foreign policy challenge. That looked prescient on Monday, when Pyongyang fired five ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.
North Korea is a country with bad cards, which it plays well. For decades, it has terrorised its neighbours and their allies into negotiations and concessions, while continuing to act with bad faith and impunity. Mr Trump's most visible response so far has been a tweet casting aspersions on the dictatorship's military capabilities. One hopeful sign, however, is that the US president seems to understand that China is the key to reining in this recalcitrant Stalinist dynasty.
North Korea has been a Chinese client state for decades, but Beijing is struggling to restrain the regime. This week's launches were timed to coincide with the annual meeting of China's rubber-stamp parliament, sending a message to Beijing that the youthful dictator Kim Jong Un is unhappy with his main benefactor.
Beijing's patience is wearing thin. After years of prevarication it has blocked imports of North Korean coal for the rest of this year, prompting a rare outburst of anti-Chinese rhetoric in North Korean state media.
China's leaders must do more to contain Pyongyang. The latest missile tests have only strengthened the rationale behind Seoul's decision to deploy a US-built and US-operated missile shield in its territory. This is a decision that has angered China, which argues that the system's radar will see deep into Chinese territory and will shift the strategic balance in the region. Beijing has responded by introducing undeclared economic sanctions against South Korea and its companies, many of which rely heavily on the Chinese market for their profits. These actions may contravene World Trade Organization rules, and have been ineffective in any case. China's leaders should know better: what country, faced with the possibility of annihilation, would choose short-term economic gain over the strongest defence it can muster?
North Korea missiles hit Sea of Japan
Beijing should focus its attention on the source of the problem — the regime next door, which builds nuclear weapons while much of its population languishes near starvation. China cannot, however, deliver a solution to the North Korea problem alone. It needs help, principally from the US.
Pyongyang has a history of acting most belligerently when it is preparing to negotiate. Mr Trump has said he would consider a meeting with Mr Kim. In South Korea, the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye is likely to lead to a government that is more willing to sit down with its counterparts from the north. Offering a meeting is the strongest card Washington and Seoul have, though. It must not be played ahead of dramatic changes in the regime's behaviour. The prospect of such a meeting — and, beyond that, a commitment to keep regime change off the agenda — might entice North Korea to stop its tests and launches, if it is combined with further economic pressure of the sort only China can apply.
Any tacit understanding reached between North Korea and the international community, and any official talks and agreements that follow, must be vigilantly monitored. After the agreed nuclear framework was signed in 1994, North Korea broke its commitments. Unchecked, it will do so again. All the same, action is needed now. The long-term goal can only be a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. The first step is de-escalating the acutely dangerous current situation before it turns into an armed conflict.
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