On Monday, South Korea announced that it would press ahead with the “swift deployment” of a U.S. missile defense system, despite vociferous Chinese opposition. On Sunday, North Korea ignored China’s pleas not to raise regional tensions by conducting another missile test, albeit one that failed. China has alsoimposed unofficial and unilateral sanctions against South Korea to persuade it not to deploy the missile defense system, experts say. “Its peninsula policy was in tatters, and things have only got worse since.”China is not alone in struggling to construct a successful policy toward North Korea, as the United States can attest. That policy, though, has simply given North Korea the resources and the technology to build up its nuclear and missile programs, experts say.

Source: Washington Post April 17, 2017 13:25 UTC