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By Lee Han-soo, Park Si-soo
If China does not solve the North Korean problem, the U.S, will do it, President Donald Trump has warned Beijing before his first summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week.
"China has great influence over North Korea, and China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won't," Trump told The Financial Times in an interview published on Monday. "And if they do, that will be very good for China, and if they don't it won't be good for anyone. If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you."
The meeting is scheduled at Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday-Friday (local time).
Asked if he believed he could solve North Korea's nuclear armament issue without China, Trump replied: "Totally."But he didn't elaborate on what "totally" meant. Trump also did not comment on the much-talked about option of a preemptive strike on the North's nuclear and military facilities.
Asked what incentive the U.S. had to offer China, Trump replied, "Trade is the incentive. It is all about trade."
Trump avoided saying whether he would consider pulling U.S. troops out of the Korean Peninsula if the U.S. and China came such an agreement on the North.
"I'm not going to tell you," he said. "You know, I am not the United States of the past where we tell you where we are going to hit in the Middle East."
However, it is still unclear that Trump's strong words will influence China. China recently imposed tough sanctions on the North, following U.N. Security Council sanctions, but has done little to tackle the nuclear problem.
