SEOUL — Washington faces the prospect of a realignment of forces in northeast Asia with China joining America’s two staunch allies there, Japan and South Korea, in a bid to talk North Korea out of its nuclear program.

That unlikely scenario has emerged as Beijing joins Tokyo and Seoul in battling the skyrocketing American tariffs targeting them, led by China with a surplus of $270.4 billion in trade with America last year. Japan’s trade surplus was $62.6 billion, just ahead of South Korea’s surplus of $60.2 billion; they were just behind the independent Chinese province that America is “committed” to defend, Taiwan, which had a surplus of $67.4 billion.

As President Trump looks forward to proclaiming Wednesday as “Liberation Day” from the enormous inequities in trade with these and other nations, China is adroitly shifting the emphasis to the nuclear issue. 

Spreading the word that it’s pressuring its ally and protectorate, North Korea, to slow down if not abandon production of nuclear warheads, Beijing is giving the impression that it, too, is not happy about the repeated threats from North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to fire at or drop warheads on South Korea, Japan, and their American ally. It’s widely believed that Chinese pressure explains why Mr. Kim has not ordered a nuclear test since 2017.

Intimations of China’s strategy have emerged in the Japanese press after trilateral meetings among foreign and trade ministers of the three countries in the face of Secretary Hegseth’s loudly stated vows to strengthen defenses against China during his recent swing to Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Guam.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reports that China “has drawn up a scenario to bolster cooperation with Japan and South Korea over North Korea’s denuclearization.” The explicit purpose, according to Kyodo, is “to drive a wedge in the three-way ties between the two Asian neighbors and the United States.”  

Quoting “Chinese sources familiar with the matter,” Kyodo said Chinese policymakers “share the view that there is a ‘strategic opportunity’ for Beijing to approach Tokyo and Seoul as their trilateral partnership with Washington could be affected” by Mr. Trump’s “disdain for multilateral frameworks” — a reference not only to Mr. Trump’s stated views on NATO but to what he thinks of the trilateral bond that President Biden formed with Japan and South Korea.

The tone of the report, picked up by Japan’s pervasive national media, suggested that the so-called Chinese sources were officials ordered by Beijing to persuade Japan and South Korea to loosen ties with Washington while Mr. Trump opens the climactic phase of his struggle to redress America’s enormous trade deficit and “level the playing field.” Mr. Trump’s stated aim is to inflict the same level of tariffs that America’s trading partners have long inflicted on imports from America.

It did not seem coincidental that Beijing raised the idea of exerting pressure on North Korea to slow down if not abandon its nuclear program exactly when the Japanese and South Koreans would be most receptive. A week earlier, the foreign ministers of all three countries got together at Tokyo to talk over other mutual interests such as the falling birth rates that are a concern in all three countries, as well as responses to natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding.

At that meeting, Japan’s foreign minister, Takeshi Iwaya, also spoke of North Korea’s burgeoning relationship with Russia — a topic that strikes a sensitive nerve in China. 

Although Russia and China are both strong allies of North Korea, Beijijng fears Pyongyang  is getting too close to Moscow by providing huge amounts of ammunition and sending troops to fight Russia’s war against Ukraine. Kyodo even said China had withdrawn its ambassador to North Korea, “temporarily,” last year “in a sign of protest over deeper military ties between North Korea and Russia.”

Mr. Trump, however, also has his own game to play with Mr. Kim, whom he remembers fondly from their three meetings in 2018 and 2019. Sure, they failed to produce a substantive agreement on North Korea giving up its nuclear program, but Mr. Trump still hopes to see him again — a move that could provide leverage for playing North Korea against both China and Russia.

Kyodo quoted Mr. Trump as saying Monday that he and Mr. Kim would probably “do something at some point.” After all, he insisted, “We have a great relationship.”