Republican presidential front- runner Donald Trump has said he would ask China to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions. (File Photo)
Republican presidential front- runner Donald Trump has said he would ask China to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions, warning that the US will not be trading as usual with the world's second largest economy which he said cannot survive without America.
"You tell them (Chinese), we are going to - either you are going to have to straighten out this North Korea problem or we are not going to be doing so much business with you," Trump, 69, told Fox News during a town hall in Indianapolis when asked how he would fix the North Korean problem as the country has recently claimed to have conducted hydrogen bomb test.
"Here is what we do. China has tremendous power over North Korea, tremendous, beyond anybody. Now they do not tell us that. They like to tweak us and say, well, we do not really.
They have total control. China cannot even survive without us because economically they have been ripping us for many years to come. They have been sucking our blood," he said.
The real estate mogul said there would be a depression in Chinese economy of its business with the US comes down.
"They do not do so much business with us, they would have a depression the likes of which you have ever seen. We have tremendous power, economic power over China. I want to get along with China.
"We are going to get along with China. But China can strangle because it comes in through China. And China is powerful. China can strangle North Korea. It can make them - bring them to the table," Trump said.
He said that he would act very quick on this if elected to the White House.
Trump said the single biggest threat is weapons.
"If it were not for that capability and the incredible power of weaponry today, I would have been out of there a long time," he added.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been intensifying his efforts to develop a long-range nuclear strike capability since the beginning of this yera. Since coming to power in 2012, Kim declared his father's bequest of a nuclear program as a crowning achievement and has changed the constitution to declare North Korea a nuclear state.
In 2009, China, the world's second largest economy, jumped to become the third biggest market for US exports. American companies have cumulatively invested over USD 62.2 billion in 58,000 projects in China and reaped bumper harvests. Their profits in China amounted to nearly USD 8 billion in 2008 alone.