In engaging with North Korea, the Biden administration must avoid the “strategic patience” employed during the Obama years. China may be in the prime position to mediate between Pyongyang and Washington.

Any resolution of the nuclear issue must start with the recognition of the DPRK’s deep concerns. While the six-party talks have not yet resumed and risks remain, China will remain critical to the future outcome.

Participants in the Six Party Talks can take four paths to progress: Make denuclearization of the Peninsula their collective top priority; make a military strike an option as talks resume; initiate peace treaty talks concurrently; and take confidence-building steps to make negotiations more inviting.

China and the U.S. agree on the need to impose sanctions, but not on the process and purpose. The starting point for imposing new sanctions should be to promote denuclearization and safeguard peace, not to escalate the tensions and not to cause chaos on the Korean peninsula.

There are voices inside China as well as the US that urge Beijing to punish North Korea’s “bad behavior” more harshly. But China and the US interpret the very end and means of the situation differently, In China’s mind, the situation is more a US responsibility rather than China’s, and use of coercion as the dominant tool has been proved ineffective.

Washington should propose a “grand bargain” to Pyongyang by formally ending the state of war on the Korean Peninsula, lifting of all except narrowly defined military sanctions against the North, and U.S. diplomatic recognition of the North Korean regime. In exchange, Pyongyang would agree to place its nuclear program under international safeguards and extend diplomatic recognition to South Korea.

Both sides on the Korean Peninsula should realize that neither could destroy the other, and that it is necessary to continue this confrontational peace based on reciprocity and balance, write Shuang Shi and Xiong Lei.

As the United States and China have been working to build a new type of great power relationship, North Korean policy has often been a point of debate. Bonnie Glaser outlines the importance of Pyongyang to the strengthening of Sino-US relations.

Six decades after the Korean War (1950-53) was ended by the signing of an armistice agreement, the two Koreas are still technically at war. The fragile truce, signed on July 27, 1953, has contributed to the volatility and hostility seen on the Korean Peninsula today.

The time has come for China to rebalance its traditional geostrategic interests with its new role as a global leader – and that means adopting a policy of disciplined engagement toward North Korea. Only then will an internationally coordinated response to the North's nuclear ambitions be possible.