Steve King

U.S. Rep. Steve King hopes that U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad can help persuade Chinese officials to take a more active approach in bringing about change in North Korea.

“The threat by North Korea is real and significant,” King, R-Kiron, said Tuesday at his office in Fort Dodge. “And it’s belligerent on top of that. The only bloodless way I think is for China to intercede and bring about a regime change in North Korea and I am hopeful that Ambassador Branstad can be pushing to get that done through the Chinese government and his relationships he has there now.”

Branstad, the former governor of Iowa, has a longstanding friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping that dates back to the 1980s.

China controls a significant portion of North Korea’s trade and has the power to potentially cripple North Korea’s economy if necessary, according to published news reports.

King said China could do more.

“The Chinese, how much do they want to take the pressure off the United States?” the congressman asked. “Not enough, or they would already be engaged.”

Meanwhile, North Korea continues to flaunt its nuclear threat.

The country conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests in July.

The tests demonstrated that part of the United States is in range of Pyongyang’s weapons, King said.

“With them firing that ICBM into the sea that was near 100 miles from the shoreline of Japan, and they fired it in an arc that took it to an altitude like a mortar round, up and fell down fairly short,” King said. “But they demonstrated they were capable to produce the altitude necessary to get to the United States.”

“If somebody puts a gun to your head and threatens to pull the trigger, you can only take that so long, and you have to do whatever it takes to stop that,” King added.

The congressman said if a regime change isn’t brought about, a United States strike on North Korea would be likely.

“If that doesn’t happen, you have to believe that President Trump and our Department of Defense are contemplating a strike on North Korea,” he said. “But if we should do that, then we can anticipate a counterstrike against South Korea across the DMZ and fire any missiles they have at us, so we better know their capabilities.”

“I say the best course in the short term is to push for a regime change and get Kim Jong-un out of there,” King said. “Eventually, our goal needs to be to reunify Korea, north and south, in a similar way that Germany was reunified after the wall came down. It tells us something about accepting a negotiated settlement to end a war rather than finishing with victory. Had we pressed for a complete victory in Korea we wouldn’t be dealing with the circumstances we are now. It would be a free Korea, north and south, unified together.”