{"id":240372,"date":"2025-07-05T15:10:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T15:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240372\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T15:10:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T15:10:23","slug":"american-bombs-in-iran-also-reverberate-in-china-and-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240372\/","title":{"rendered":"American bombs in Iran also reverberate in China and North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump<\/a> campaigned on keeping the United States out of foreign wars, but it didn’t take long to convince him to come to the direct aid of Israel, hitting Iranian nuclear targets with bunker-buster bombs<\/a> dropped by B-2 stealth bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a submarine.<\/p>\n

Beyond the attack’s immediate impact on helping bring the 12-day war<\/a> to a close, experts say Trump’s decision to use force against another country also will certainly be reverberating in the Asia-Pacific, Washington’s priority theater. <\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s strikes on Iran show that he\u2019s not afraid to use military force \u2014 this would send a clear message to North Korea, and even to China and Russia, about Trump’s style,\u201d said Duyeon Kim, a senior analyst at the Center for a New American Security based in Seoul, South Korea. <\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the strikes, Pyongyang and Beijing might have assumed that Trump is risk averse, particularly based on his behavior his first presidency despite some tough talk,” Kim said.<\/p>\n

Ten days into the war between Israel and Iran, Trump made the risky decision to step in, hitting three nuclear sites with American firepower on June 22 in a bid to destroy the country\u2019s nuclear program at a time while negotiations between Washington and Tehran were still ongoing.<\/p>\n

The attacks prompted a pro forma Iranian retaliatory strike the following day on a U.S. base in nearby Qatar, which caused no casualties, and both Iran and Israel then agreed to a ceasefire<\/a> on June 24. <\/p>\n

North Korea<\/a>, China<\/a> and Russia<\/a> all were quick to condemn the American attack, with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling it \u201cunprovoked aggression,\u201d China’s Foreign Ministry saying it violated international law and \u201cexacerbated tensions in the Middle East,\u201d and North Korea’s Foreign Ministry maintaining it \u201ctrampled down the territorial integrity and security interests of a sovereign state.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the strikes were a clear tactical success, the jury is still out on whether they will have a more broad strategic benefit to Washington’s goals in the Middle East or convince Iran it needs to work harder than ever to develop a nuclear deterrent, possibly pulling the U.S. back into a longer-term conflict.<\/p>\n

If the attack remains a one-off strike, U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region likely will see the decision to become involved as a positive sign from Trump’s administration, said Euan Graham, a senior defense analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. strike on Iran will be regarded as net plus by Pacific allies if it is seen to reinforce red lines, restore deterrence and is of limited duration, so as not to pull the administration off-course from its stated priorities in the Indo-Pacific,\u201d he said. \u201cChina will take note that Trump is prepared to use force, at least opportunistically.\u201d<\/p>\n

In China, many who have seen Trump as having a \u201cno-war mentality\u201d will reassess that in the wake of the attacks, which were partially aimed at forcing Iran’s hand in nuclear program negotiations, said Zhao Minghao, an international relations professor at China\u2019s Fudan University in Shanghai. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the U.S. used power with its air attacks against Iran is something China needs to pay attention to,\u201d he said. \u201cHow Trump used power to force negotiations has a significance for how China and the U.S. will interact in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, he said, Washington should not think it can employ the same strategy with Beijing. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf a conflict breaks out between China and the U.S., it may be difficult for the U.S. to withdraw as soon as possible, let alone withdraw unscathed,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Indeed, China and North Korea present very different challenges than Iran. <\/p>\n

First and foremost, both already have nuclear weapons, raising the stakes of possible retaliation considerably in the event of any attack. <\/p>\n

There also is no Asian equivalent of Israel, whose relentless attacks on Iranian missile defenses in the opening days of the war paved the way for the B-2 bombers to fly in and out without a shot being fired at them. <\/p>\n

Still, the possibility of the U.S. becoming involved in a conflict involving either China or North Korea is a very real one, and Beijing and Pyongyang will almost certainly try to assess what the notoriously unpredictable Trump would do. <\/p>\n

North Korea will likely be \u201cquite alarmed\u201d at what Israel, with a relatively small but high-quality force, has been able to achieve over Iran, said Joseph Dempsey, a defense expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. <\/p>\n

At the same time, it likely will be seen internally as justification for its own nuclear weapons program, <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Iran did have deployable nuclear weapons would this have occurred?\u201d Dempsey said. \u201cProbably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. decision to attack while still in talks with Iran will also not go unnoticed, said Hong Min, a senior analyst at South Korea\u2019s Institute for National Unification. <\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Korea may conclude that dialogue, if done carelessly, could backfire by giving the United States a pretext for possible aggression,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of provoking the Trump administration, North Korea is more likely to take an even more passive stance toward negotiations with Washington, instead focusing on strengthening its internal military buildup and pursuing closer ties with Russia, narrowing the prospects for future talks,” he said.<\/p>\n

China will look at the attacks through the visor of Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island off its coast that China claims as its own territory and President Xi Jinping has not ruled out taking by force.<\/p>\n

The U.S. supplies Taiwan with weapons and is one of its most important allies, though Washington’s official policy on whether it would come to Taiwan\u2019s aid in the case of a conflict with China is known as \u201cstrategic ambiguity,” meaning not committing to how it would respond.<\/p>\n

Militarily, the strike on Iran raises the question of whether the U.S. might show less restraint than has been expected by China in its response and hit targets on the Chinese mainland in the event of an invasion of Taiwan, said Drew Thompson, senior fellow with the Singapore-based think tank RSIS Rajaratnam School of International Studies. <\/p>\n

It will also certainly underscore for Beijing the \u201cdifficulty of predicting Trump’s actions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

“The U.S. airstrike on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities caught many by surprise,” Thompson said. “I think it demonstrated a tolerance and acceptance of risk in the Trump administration that is perhaps surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also gives rise to a concern that Taiwan\u2019s President Lai Ching-te, who in recent speeches has increased warnings about the threat from China, may be further emboldened in his rhetoric, said Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based foreign policy think tank Defense Priorities.<\/p>\n

Already, Lai’s words have prompted China to accuse him of pursuing Taiwanese independence, which is a red line for Beijing. Goldstein said he worried Taiwan may try to take advantage of the American \u201cuse of force against Iran to increase its deterrent situation versus the mainland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Lai’s series of recent speeches appear almost designed to set up a new cross-strait crisis, perhaps in the hopes of building more support in Washington and elsewhere around the Pacific,\u201d said Goldstein, who also is director of the China Initiative at Brown University\u2019s Watson Institute. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that is an exceedingly risky gambit, to put it mildly,” he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Didi Tang and Albee Zhang in Washington contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump campaigned on keeping the United States out of foreign wars,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[93465,26935,3907,7138,4179,8614,75715,8617,285,49,978,659,7660,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-240372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-93465","9":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-bombings","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-international-agreements","14":"tag-israel-iran-war","15":"tag-military-and-defense","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa","20":"tag-war-and-unrest","21":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114801267561554625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}