China has launched a big push to boost economic engagement with North Korea and persuade Pyongyang to adopt reforms, experts say.
Analysts suggest Beijing believes development will improve regional stability by encouraging its impoverished neighbor to act more cautiously. China also hopes to benefit from port access, mineral rights and increased trade.
However, some believe the economic drive undercuts the impact of sanctions imposed in the hope of forcing North Korea to denuclearize.
China has more sway over the North than anyone else, but it cannot control Pyongyang’s actions.
“It looks like they decided to do something totally counterintuitive to us: invest and take control,” said professor Hazel Smith, a leading researcher on North Korea at Cranfield University.
Beijing used Kim Jong-il’s two visits this year to hammer home the benefits of reform, taking him to the fast-developing cities of Dalian and Tianjin in May and to northeastern factories last month.
“The Chinese are a very practical people and they will not invest where they don’t see a mid to long-term return,” Kongdan Oh of the Brookings Institution in Washington said. “That alone would not make the Chinese government promote this. It is strategic and political ... They want North Korea to have at least minimum economic stability.”
Beijing fears a collapse of North Korea’s regime could lead to a refugee crisis and upset the regional power balance.
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