The latest warning by China about North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal is quite revealing on several levels. First, China appears to have lost its patience over North Korea and has tried to appeal to the US to restrict Pyongyang’s aggressive behavior.
Ever since the North Korean nuclear crisis evolved, China has played an active role in the six-party talks. China used to support North Korea because of the necessity to defend its frontier from US forces in Japan and South Korea.
After North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006, the challenge facing the US was how to contain a nuclear North Korea. The administrations of former US president George W. Bush and US President Barack Obama have insisted on employing the multilateral nuclear talks to avoid direct negotiation with Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, the Chinese position was to prevent any confrontation in Northeast Asia. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China set out to replace the Cold War structure with a new international order and to undermine the US influence in Northeast Asia. In doing so, China overestimated its own ability to use economic and diplomatic resources to regulate North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
Second, North Korea is eager to develop a nuclear arsenal to ensure its own survival. As North Korea recognized the difficulty of using force to unify the divided nation in the 1990s, its strategic objectives have become more defensive. Pyongyang is primarily concerned about regime survival than political reunification.
In addition to its nuclear weapons program, the North Korean leadership manufactured several military incidents to put pressure on the US, South Korea and Japan. In April 2009, North Korea withdrew momentarily from the six-party nuclear talks, and on May 25, 2009, it tested a nuclear weapon to withstand international pressures.
It was through China’s intervention that the North returned to the six-party negotiations. Unfortunately China failed to have North Korea suspend its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid.
The past five years have witnessed a dramatic decline of Chinese diplomatic influence over North Korea. During mounting military conflicts on the Korean Peninsula in 2010, China refused to criticize North Korea’s belligerent behavior toward South Korea. The North sank a South Korean corvette in March 2010, killing 46 sailors.
It also fired artillery at Yeonpyeong Island in November 2010, killing four people and marking the first direct attack on the South since the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953. China’s lack of cooperation alienated the US, South Korea and Japan.
The Obama administration urged South Korea and Japan to form an alliance for mutual protection. With or without China, the US was ready to step in to maintain the balance of power in Northeast Asia.
A collision between a Chinese fishing boat and the Japanese Coast Guard in September 2010 reinforced the image of an uncooperative China. Even though Japan backed down against strong domestic pressure, China reportedly suspended exports of rare earth minerals to Japan. As a result, many public opinion polls in South Korea and Japan regarded China as a more serious threat to regional security than North Korea.
Third, the US has been testing the tolerance levels of China, South Korea, Japan and Russia toward the use of force against North Korean nuclear facilities. However, trapped in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US turned out to be incapable of attacking the North. When the US recognized its own vulnerability, it turned to China for help in the six-party talks.
However, everything changed with a leadership transition in Pyongyang. Following the death of former North Korean Kim Jong-il on Dec. 17, 2011, his then-29-year-old son, Kim Jong-un, took over the regime.
During the previous six-party talks and the US-North Korea bilateral dialogues, the Obama administration intended to denuclearize the North through a combination of political pressure and economic incentives. In February 2012, North Korea agreed to end all nuclear-related programs in exchange for food aid from the US. However, in March of that year, the announcement of a North Korean satellite launch undermined the agreement. Kim Jong-un went ahead with more satellite launch attempts in April and December 2012.
The regime resorted to military adventurism to legitimate the inexperienced, third Kim. Although the first satellite failed to enter its programmed orbit, the US condemned the act and suspended its food aid program to North Korea.
The short-lived dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang ended. Tensions worsened after North Korea conducted a third nuclear test on Feb. 12, 2013, and threatened to attack US military bases in Northeast Asia.
Fourth, China has begun to correct its misjudgement of the North Korean nuclear crisis. The strategic failure had to do with the initial confidence of China’s new economic strength as the biggest buyer of US Treasury bounds, the largest trading partner of the US, South Korea and Japan, and the seemingly least-affected country in the 2008 financial crisis.
Having recognized its limited influence over North Korea, China has recently urged the US to pursue bilateral negotiation with the North. Nonetheless, China has not criticized North Korea’s aggression in public, and this reluctance displays the remnants of the Cold War thinking and an insensitivity toward South Korean and Japanese concerns for peace.
Instead of using North Korea to counter the US influence in regional politics, China has yet to prove itself a neutral power broker in Northeast Asia.
Joseph Tse-hei Lee is a professor of history and codirector of the Global Asia Studies program at Pace University in New York.
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