China is "trying to humor" President Donald Trump on pushing North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions because "he's made it the No. 1 issue," Gideon Rachman tells Newsmax TV.
Rachman, chief foreign correspondent for the Financial Times, sat down with Newsmax TV’s Bill Tucker to discuss his new book , "Easternization: Asia's Rise and America's Decline From Obama to Trump and Beyond."
"I'm not sure they actually are convinced that it's a great idea to totally put the squeeze on North Korea," Rachman says.
"They worry that if the regime actually collapsed," he added, "it might provoke" economic instability in Beijing.
President Trump has been pressuring Chinese President Xi Jinping to increasingly push North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to end North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Trump made Pyongyang central to his weekend summit last month with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
"It's, in some ways, convenient for them to say: 'Oh, sorry guys, there's not much we can do about that,'" Rachman argues.
"But, there's an element of truth in it as well," he added, referring to the economic issue. "North Korea, it's a very poor country, but it is armed to the teeth.
"It has nuclear weapons, a vast army – and it would fight.
"There is a long history of deep Korean and now North Korean nationalism.
"The Chinese could put pressure on them – but whether they can deliver North Korea or deliver an end to the nuclear weapons program, I'm not so sure."
More broadly, the North Korea issue comes amid President Xi's effort to expand China's economy, Rachman reveals.
"They're going through an expansionist phase – and if you follow the rhetoric of the Chinese President Xi Jinping, he talks about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people, which is almost the Chinese version of 'Make America Great Again.'
"'Make China great again," he says.
But Beijing is facing similar economic woes as the United States, Rachman adds.
"Instabilities in the financial system," he told Tucker. "Some crazy real-estate booms that they don't quite know how to control."
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