.@MrKRudd: Chinese companies could soon face new sanctions from the U.S. over the North Korea crisis https://t.co/2vtlDTpuw7

— Quest Means Business (@questCNN) August 1, 2017

On August 1, 2017, Asia Society Policy Institute President Kevin Rudd spoke with Richard Quest on CNN International’s “Quest Means Business” about the gravity of the North Korean nuclear program, potential new U.S. sanctions against Chinese firms, and how those might impact the U.S.-China relationship.

Rudd emphasizes the inevitability of the introduction of secondary sanctions against Chinese firms “who the United States will allege, have been assisting, directly or indirectly, the North Korea regime.” This in itself, Rudd argues, will create a “new dynamic” in the U.S.-China relationship, with China taking retaliatory action that will raise tensions in the bilateral relationship, “quite apart from the ability to deliver outcomes for North Korea”.

For Rudd, North Korea is unequivocally the “number one” strategic challenge facing the international community. While we do not know the pace of North Korea’s militarization program to place a nuclear warhead on the top of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), we know that North Korea developed an ICBM long range capability to hit the United States on July 28, 2017. According to Rudd, this is a “problem of the near term” and a “real and emergent present danger” that must be confronted. (3 min., 6 sec.)