Tone will differ when Trump calls over North Korea

The last phone call between Trump and Turnbull was famously cantankerous. This one is set to be much more co-operative.

Malcolm Turnbull and Donald Trump will discuss the Korean crisis in a telephone call tomorrow.

This is set to be a very different phone call from the last one.

Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull are scheduled to speak tomorrow at 7.45am AEST.

The last conversation President Trump and Prime Minister Turnbull had — in January — was a famously-cantankerous one.

The transcript of that call reveals that Mr Trump was clearly unhappy with the deal under which his predecessor, President Obama, agreed to take asylum-seekers from Nauru and Manus Island.

As Trump bluntly told Turnbull, he’d had many phone conversations that day and “this was my most unpleasant call.”

But now when it comes to North Korea — a crisis in our neighbourhood — Donald Trump needs Australia, and therefore Malcolm Turnbull.

Trump is facing the biggest test of his Presidency.

He needs to work out how to deal with an increasingly-aggressive North Korea.

As US Commander-in-chief, Trump ordered an attack on a Syrian military base.

In contrast to the situation in North Korea, this was relatively low risk.

It was a targeted attack, by Tomahawk cruise missiles on a defined, military target.

But what would any attack on North Korea look like?

The reality is that nobody knows. Pentagon war planners can “war game” how it may look — and would be doing that right now — but with a regimen as unpredictable as that in North Korea which is also armed with a sizeable supply of weapons, the result could be catastrophic.

North Korea may well retaliate against its (very near) neighbour, South Korea.

The number of conventional missiles on the Korean peninsula is formidable — enough to cause enormous casualties.

As well as being likely to raise possible military when he speaks to Mr Turnbull tomorrow, President Trump is more likely to want to talk about what Australia can do to pressure China.

Malcolm Turnbull is correct when he says that China must do more to resolve the increasingly-volatile crisis.

So far China has — in my opinion — been culpable in its lack of any real pressure on North Korea to cease both its nuclear program and its increasingly-shrill actions and threats.

North Korea’s firing of a missile across northern Japan, as it did last week, should be enough of a warning to China that the regime of Kim Jong-un is hurtling towards chaos.

China is the only significant country that has any leverage over North Korea.

As the Council on Foreign Relations observed in July: “China is North Korea’s most important ally, biggest trading partner, and main source of food and energy.

“It has helped sustain Kim Jong-un’s regime, and has historically opposed harsh international sanctions on North Korea in the hope of avoiding regime collapse and a refugee influx across their 870-mile border.

“Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test and ongoing missile launches have complicated its relationship with Beijing, which has continued to advocate for the resumption of the Six Party Talks, the multilateral framework aimed at denuclearising North Korea … Yet China’s policies have done little to deter its neighbour’s nuclear ambitions.”

China’s Ambassador to the UN, Liu Jieyi, said overnight that Beijing will “never allow chaos and war” on the Korean Peninsula.

Well, he’s already got chaos, in my view — if China cannot rein in the rogue North Korean regime which is threatening war against several of its neighbours, then this fits my definition of chaos.

And if it wants to ensure that war does not occur, it must take urgent action.

The time for China averting its eyes on looming chaos and war must end now.