This photo taken on March 21, 2023 shows metal barricades placed near the Capitol building in Washington, DC, the United States. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are still escalating and there is no sign that the antagonism between the United States and the Republic of Korea on the one side and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on the other will ease in the near future. How to break the stalemate and ease the tensions should be a concern of the international community.
The launching of a new model of long-range ballistic missile by the DPRK on Thursday sends the message that it will never give in to the threats of the US, which has done nothing to convince the DPRK that it will gain the security guarantee it needs to give up its nuclear program.
Just as Liu Xiaoming, China's special representative on Korean Peninsula affairs, said in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday, the US is acting with intent and is clear about how the DPRK will respond to what it is doing with the ROK. To be exact, escalating tensions on the peninsula is what the US needs to strengthen its alliances with the ROK and Japan, similar to the way in which it provoked the Ukraine conflict to tighten its grip on the transatlantic alliance.
In September, DPRK leader Kim Jong-un said Pyongyang's status as a nuclear power was now "irreversible". But as Liu said, "People focus on the launches and nuclear tests of the DPRK, but they ignore the reason why they are doing this", which is the lack of a security structure to guarantee peace on the peninsula.
It is unfair to just point an accusing finger at the DPRK, which has long been facing the threat from the US. Washington has long believed that sanctions, threats and pressure of all kinds would be able to force the DPRK to its knees. Nuclear weapons are a sole deterrent that the DPRK can employ to ensure its national security against possible attacks from the US and the ROK.
The meeting between former US president Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un gave the world a ray of hope for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But that hope has dimmed as the US has failed to make corresponding moves to address the concerns of the DPRK.
Now with Washington's focus on trying to contain the rise of China, the stalemate on the Korean Peninsula has turned out to be what it needs to get Seoul and Tokyo to jump on its armored wagon train of containment targeting China.
But it is going too far in needlessly escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula in order to strengthen its alliances with the ROK and Japan so they will join its China-containment strategy.
Even some of its allies are concerned that Washington is overstretching itself and are having second thoughts about putting their own fate in its hands.