Chinese President Jiang Zemin (
Jiang's visit is of great importance. He is the first top Chinese leader to visit Pyongyang since the younger Kim formally replaced his later father Kim Il-sung as supreme leader in 1998. The Jiang-Kim summit in Pyongyang indicates that the two countries have formally reestablished their traditional intimate relations following the senior Kim's demise in July 1994.
It is expected that China will give North Korea enormous economic assistance including oil, coal and food in exchange for Pyongyang's political and strategic cooperation. Beyond the bilateral relations, top on the leaders' agenda this time is to enhance their united front against US President George W. Bush's attempt to build the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) and National Missile Defense (NMD) systems. This will increase their respective bargaining leverage in dealing with the US.
China is irked by the Bush administration's Taiwan policy, its hard-line approach to China and its insistence on developing the missile defense systems. Jiang's trip will enable Beijing to consolidate its effort to form a coalition with Pyongyang and Moscow against Washington's building an NMD.
Beijing also wants to show Washington that China does have special influence in North Korea, in a bid to elicit US concessions on matters such as acquiescence in China's expansion of its nuclear forces and US support for Taiwan, in exchange for China's assistance in getting Pyongyang back to the negotiation table.
With the advent of the post-Cold War era, Kim has tried to establish a US-North Korea-China triangular relationship, much like the China-North Korea-Soviet Union relationship that existed in the days of Sino-Soviet rivalry, so that he can maximize his gains from Sino-American competition for influence in his country and the Korean peninsula as a whole. He has driven a wedge between Beijing and Washington since 1998.
The warm atmosphere of Sino-American relations fostered during then president Bill Clinton's visit to China in June 1998 evaporated when Pyongyang launched a Taepodong II missile less than two months later. Since then, China and the US have fought over missile defense systems. The confrontation intensified with Bush's inauguration last January. Bush views China as a strategic competitor and North Korea as a rogue state. His decision to develop an NMD served as a driving force to push Beijing, Pyongyang and Moscow -- which oppose Bush's attempt to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- together.
Kim has skillfully used the South Korean card (the inter-Korea Summit of June 2000), the China card (his visits to Beijing just before the Korea Summit and earlier this year), the Western card (establishing diplomatic relations with the US' Western allies, especially EU countries) and more recently the Russian card to isolate the US and to press Washington to change its hard line toward Pyongyang and to take the initiative to improve relations with North Korea.
Jiang's trip serves this function. North Korea's proposal on Sunday to South Korea to resume talks suggests that Kim Jong-il is going to reactivate his game of playing the South Korean card against the US in the wake of consolidating relations with Russia and China. It will also be a big boost for China's influence in Korean affairs if Jiang is able to persuade Kim to pay a return visit to Seoul.
South Korean politics is in chaos due to the presidential election in December 2002. There is much at stake for President Kim Dae-jung from Jiang's visit. His "sunshine" policy of reconciliation and cooperation with the North through engagement, is facing severe challenges from domestic conservatives led by the main opposition Grand National Party. The policy was severely damaged by the North Korea-Russia Declaration in August -- which was a retreat from Kim Il-jung's promise last year not to request the withdrawal of US forces from South Korea. What is worse, President Kim's ruling Millennium Democratic Party suffered a major setback when it lost the no-confidence vote on Unification Minister Lim Dong-won, -- the chief architect of the "sunshine" policy -- in the National Assembly on Monday.
What is particularly worth noting is that Jiang's trip follows his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July and Kim's meetings with Putin last month. This signifies the forging of a Beijing-Pyongyang-Moscow axis against Washington.
A bi-polar confrontation between the China-North Korea-Russia axis and the US-South Korea-Japan alliance looms large. Given the economic interdependence of the individual countries of the two blocs, however, this bi-polar system is not so tight as that of the Cold War and the confrontation is policy-oriented and limited to one dimension rather than the multiple dimensions of the Cold War.
This confrontation will inevitably heighten the tension in the region. It remains to be seen whether this bipolar confrontation will be a short-term phenomenon or a lasting one. The US attitude will be the key variable to determine the trend. If Bush shifts back to Clinton's engagement policy with North Korea and China, the bipolar confrontation will be avoided.
Liou To-hai is professor of diplomacy at National Chengchi University and currently a visiting research fellow in the department of political science at the University of Melbourne.
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