North Korea’s decision to ignore international outcry and launch a long-range rocket on Feb. 7 was a slap on China’s face. Beijing has no choice but to appear on the side of the US, condemning Pyongyang and reaffirming its long-held position for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. This reveals the volatile and hostile situation in Northeast Asia and marks the gradual erosion of Chinese influence over the North Korean leadership.
China’s policy toward North Korea entails three pragmatic considerations. First, worrying about the vulnerability of North Korean economy, China seeks to prevent a collapse of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime, which would lead to an unprecedented refugee crisis in the Chinese frontier. The heavily mined Demilitarized Zone along the 38th parallel makes South Korea an unlikely destination for North Koreans in search of a better livelihood.
During the late 1990s, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences foresaw that a regime change would have a terrible spillover effect on China’s northeast provinces as hundreds of thousands of destitute North Koreans might cross the Yalu River, causing a humanitarian crisis, threatening local economy and security. For China, preserving North Korea outweighs the danger of dealing with a power vacuum in the event of a regime collapse.
Second, a geopolitical showdown with the US and a unified Korea is another uncertainty that China hopes to avoid. Such a rivalry might not develop into a military crisis, but is bound to destabilize Beijing’s diplomatic relations with Washington and Seoul. A unified Korea would probably maintain Seoul’s commitment to the US-South Korea alliance and permit US military bases on the peninsula.
The US-South Korea alliance was launched during the Cold War as a counterweight to North Korea. Theoretically, peaceful reunification would make such a mutual defense arrangement redundant.
However, since 2009, the US and South Korea have worked to transform the mutual alliance into a global strategic partnership, addressing crises beyond the threat of a North Korean attack. US President Obama proposed to include Japan in the new partnership. This development instilled a sense of fear among Chinese leaders about being encircled by US allies.
No matter how reluctant it feels, China prefers embracing a nuclear North Korea as a quasi-ally to accepting the reunification of the two Koreas.
Third, China has exploited the North Korean nuclear crisis to bargain with the US over the Taiwanese question. Nuclear flashpoints in Northeast Asia seemed to have brought China and the US closer in the past decade.
Ever since the administration of former US president George W. Bush created the six-party nuclear talks to denuclearize North Korea, China has actively participated in this diplomatic platform and proclaimed to work with the US toward a nuclear-free Northeast Asia. In return, Bush agreed not to support Taiwan’s independence drive during the 2000s.
Like the US’ allies, China considers a nuclear North Korea to be a destabilizing force in regional politics. A nuclear arms race among the two Koreas and Japan is the last thing that China wants. By bringing the US to negotiate with Pyongyang, China ensures that the US is not going to launch military actions against the North and maintains the minimal stability that it desires.
While denuclearization of Northeast Asia is frequently cited in Chinese diplomatic rhetoric, Beijing does not want to resolve one crisis only to have to face another one. This explains why China opposes strict economic sanctions against North Korea. Though sympathizing with the North’s rationale for pursuing nuclear weapons as a deterrence against US invasion, Beijing tries to reduce tensions through multilateral negotiations, calling on Washington to engage with Pyongyang directly and exercising some control over the six-party nuclear talks.
Seeking to de-escalate the nuclear crisis, the US has relied on China to put pressure on North Korea, with US Secretary of State John Kerry traveling to Beijing to solicit Chinese support over the issue.
However, appealing to China for help has achieved little, because Washington and Beijing share vastly different geopolitical agendas. Emphasizing denuclearization as a prerequisite of holding bilateral talks with Pyongyang, the US is mobilizing international allies to impose strict sanctions. Since Beijing’s insistence on diplomatic negotiation contradicts Washington’s preference for coercive measures, it would be hard for both powers to reach a consensus over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
While the North Korean nuclear crisis has shaped the China-US diplomatic relations for years, it offers an opportunity for Taiwan to reposition itself in a larger regional political context.
Given the latest US initiatives to re-engage many Pacific nations, the advent of a new administration in Taiwan under president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) might want to articulate a proactive diplomatic agenda, embrace a wider security policy and reach out to neighboring nations. Only by doing so can Taiwan reinvent itself as a new force for stability and security in an increasingly volatile world.
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is a professor of history at Pace University in New York City.
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