The high-altitude system would achieve none of its stated goals if deployed, but would shake the fragile trust of Beijing and Moscow toward Washington. The US should learn some lessons from the Cuban missile crisis and NATO’s eastward expansion, understand and respect other countries’ security concerns, and take some concrete measures to ease instead of aggravate the tension in the Korean Peninsula.

There is little doubt that the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has lost Chinese public opinion. Doug Bandow argues that it would help if the U.S. and its allies, most obviously the Republic of Korea and Japan, made it easier for Beijing to effectively join America’s anti-Pyongyang coalition.

Many countries have strengthened the physical protection of nuclear materials and facilities, and stronger regulations have been put into place. Now that the Nuclear Security Summits are said to have served their purpose, it is time to translate political stances into additional concrete measures and investment in nuclear security.

Through interventionist misadventures in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, the U.S. has been a major contributing factor in the unrest and has proven incapable of maintaining peace and order by its own effort. China has a non-confrontational approach to international relations and can be an effective partner in complementing the U.S. in anti-terrorism efforts.

The Fourth Nuclear Security Summit is held in Washington D.C from March 31 to April 1. Personally advocated by United States President Barack Obama, the nuclear summit has been convened once every two years since 2010.

Pyongyang should pay a price for its violation of Security Council resolutions, but punishment by itself will not magically solve the nuclear problem. If sanctions could not be translated into a strategic rethink, they will only add more pain to the ordinary North Koreans' already miserable life.

High-level talks between China and the US have served to stabilize bilateral ties, making agreement possible on tougher sanctions against the DPRK and setting the stage for an imminent summit meeting between the two countries’ leaders.

This US defense installation would offer no real protection from the North’s usable weaponry, and would surely provoke the DPRK into a new, vicious cycle of action vs. reaction. The idea has already stirred strong protests from the Chinese and Russian governments, which believe THAAD, if deployed, will threaten their security interests. The idea of deploying THAAD on Korean soil is a bad example of how anger and angst can overpower and replace rational response.

Beijing should take effective measures to contain DPRK moves to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. China should also urge and assist the DPRK to reform, open up and pursue peaceful development, which is the right way of economic development and improvement of people’s livelihood.

China and the United States have yet to reach consensus in response to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. is not prepared to follow China’s path toward a rapid resurrection of the Six-Party Talks, while Beijing resists imposing alternative U.S. policies of applying unilateral sanctions on North Korea’s foreign enablers or reinforcing military pressure on Pyongyang.