NORTH KOREA AIMS HIGH, Part 1 Beijing frets over Pyongyang's launch
By Peter J Brown
As the world watches and the leaders of North Korea look to the sky and relish
their satellite dreams, the United States, South Korea and Japan are watching
their radar screens and scrambling their ballistic missile defense (BMD)
forces.
This planned launch by North Korea is "the DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic
of Korea's] sovereign right universally recognized which does not allow mere
puppets to take issue with it", a spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful
Reunification of Korea told the official Korean Central News Agency on February
26 in response to remarks issued by South Korea. "If the puppet warmongers
infringe upon our inviolable dignity even a
bit ... we will not only punish the provokers but reduce their stronghold to
debris."
North Korea has declared that its Kwangmyongsong 2 experimental communications
satellite is ready to soar from the Musudan-ri launch facility in Hwadae. North
Korea has designated the launch vehicle as the Unha 2, which many experts in
the West brand as simply a redesigned Taepodong-2 missile.
What is clear is that even before it flies 100 kilometers down range, North
Korea will in effect be violating a pair of United Nations (UN) Security
Council Resolutions - 1695 and 1718 - which forbid North Korea from engaging in
any work on ballistic missiles.
This week, Japan's Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone and South Korea's
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan agreed that a launch would
indeed violate these UN Security Council Resolutions, which were enacted in
July 2006 immediately after a failed Taepodong-2 ballistic missile test.
On the evening of February 26, ABC News ran an interview with Admiral Timothy
Keating, head of the US Pacific Command.
"If a missile leaves the
launch pad, we will be prepared to respond upon direction of the president.
Should it look like it is not a satellite launch - that it is something other
than a satellite launch - we will be ready to respond," said Admiral Keating,
who went on to say that if necessary, a successful US missile interception in
this instance, "should be a source of great confidence and reassurance to our
allies and partners".
However, if the US and Japan intercept
the North Korean ballistic missile, it may disturb Chinese military planners,
according to Katsuhisa Furukawa, a fellow at the Japan Science and Technology
Agency's Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society in Tokyo.
"An interception may have some impact on China's nuclear doctrine in one way or
another," said Furukawa. "North Korea's continuous efforts to advance their
ballistic missile programs are well known. So it will not be a total surprise.
Perhaps, Japan may try to complete the deployment of its BMD system faster, but
it would not affect the fundamentals of Japan's defense strategy."
While there are reports that China is doing everything in its power to prevent
North Korea from proceeding with this launch and that China is ready to impose
its own sanctions, there is also a sense that China is quite comfortable as it
simply stands back and lets things happen.
A repeat of 2006 is possible. Then, China sent a rapid series of signals to
Pyongyang that it was quite irate over the failed launch. North Korean refugees
at a US consulate were given a green light to depart to South Korea or the US,
Japan was encouraged to raise the issue of its kidnapped citizens at the
six-party talks, and China apparently even played its crude oil card and cut
back on crude oil shipments to North Korea.
Still, these had no real impact, and Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu
proclaimed at the time, "The traditional friendship between China and the DPRK
has withstood the tests of history and its tribulations".
However, unlike 2006, Japanese warships like the cruiser Kongo are now out in
the Pacific equipped with BMD systems supplied by the US. And Japan has just
adopted a new so-called "Basic Space Law", which allows for "non-aggressive"
military space operations.
"Under the new law, the SDF [Japanese Self-Defense Forces] can manufacture,
possess and operate its own satellites to support its terrestrial military
operations, including BMD. Immediate candidates for SDF procurement would be
satellites for reconnaissance, early warning and tracking and communications -
all to enhance BMD capabilities," wrote Setsuko Aoki, a professor of policy
management at Keio University, in her Asia Times Online (Japan
enters a new space age, July 3, 2008).
In the final days of February, Chinese and US military leaders assembled in
Beijing for the fifth Defense Policy Coordination Talks, which had been
suspended after the US announced more than $6 billion in arms sales to Taiwan
last October. After the two-day session, David Sedney, the under secretary of
defense for East Asia, who led the large US delegation said nothing about any
discussions of the North Korean launch. At almost the same time, Japanese
Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone arrived in Beijing to meet with Chinese
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.
So, everything appeared to be business as usual in Beijing in February, and
that can only mean one thing, according to Rick Fisher, senior fellow at the
International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington, DC.
"Beijing continues to value a nuclear missile armed DPRK that strikes terror
into Japan and provides constant blackmail pressures on South Korea. Regardless
of appearances, a nuclear missile armed DPRK is not entirely a threat to
China's long term goals," said Fisher. "China has been and remains the DPRK's
decisive ally and has played a direct and indirect role in both its nuclear
weapon and missile programs. China played an early role in educating DPRK
nuclear engineers, and helped with satellite integration for the 1998 Taepodong
1 missiles. Since then the DPRK has very likely benefited from some of the
Chinese missile and nuclear technologies sold to Pakistan and Iran."
"But so far, China's aid for DPRK would appear to have backfired, as seen in
Tokyo's ever more active embrace of BMD cooperation with the US," Fisher added.
According to Rodger Baker, director of East Asia Analysis at the Texas-based
geopolitical intelligence company Stratfor, China has good reason to have
certain reservations about North Korea's actions in this instance. The launch
may be closely tied to the complex flow of events surrounding the upcoming
changes in the North Korea's leadership. In an assessment he wrote in December,
"China, North Korea: Preparing for Life After Kim", Baker wrote:
[China]
could intervene to assist the losing, more pro-China faction at the risk of
exacerbating the anti-China sentiment emerging from the political processes
under way in North Korea - or worse, of involvement in a military conflict
inside North Korea. While not risking hardening anti-China sentiment in North
Korea or military conflict, failure to act could see Beijing’s long-time buffer
state shift its alliance away from China. In the face of this dilemma, Beijing
is stepping up its intelligence on North Korea in a bid to map out the various
leanings of key military officials and to gauge their power and influence in
the North Korean leadership.
"DPRK is occasionally
unpredictable or may bark at the wrong time and growl at the wrong person for
China’s interest," said Baker. "With the current missile test, China is taking
a more hands-off approach, though Beijing and Pyongyang have planned reciprocal
visits of their leaders this year."
Beijing has become quite comfortable in its dual role as both North Korea's
chief source of support and as the gatekeeper to Pyongyang, this role enables
China to ensure that Washington cannot negotiate with North Korea without
Beijing's presence.
"Ties with China have improved, perhaps in part because the DPRK has no other
country to turn to. The Chinese offered additional assistance during [Chinese
envoy] Wang Jiarui's visit. If the DPRK tests a missile, it is possible that
the Chinese could withhold or drag out supply of that assistance," said Bonnie
Glaser, a resident senior associate with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Glaser is
referring to the visit to Pyongyang by the Chief of the International Liaison
Department of the Chinese Communist Party in late January.
In a China Brief she co-authored in late February, it was stated, "The visit
also sends the signal that if the US were to seek a rapid improvement in
bilateral ties with North Korea, China is well positioned to protect its
interests and maintain its influence on the peninsula, a not-so-subtle
suggestion that stability on the Korean Peninsula will not be possible unless
China’s interests are taken into account."
According to Glaser, following the 2006 missile test and the test by North
Korea of a nuclear weapon a few months later, China's anger manifested itself
in the prolonged suspension of high-level exchanges.
"When Vice President Xi Jinping visited DPRK last June, Kim Jong-il pledged
that Pyongyang would 'never breach trust with China.' In a sense, this [launch]
is a test of that statement," said Glaser. "Of course, if the North Koreans
insist they are testing a satellite and the Chinese buy into that line -
China's Xinhua state news agency has already made this a point of emphasis -
then it won't be a test of whether the DPRK is breaching trust with China."
"Diplomatically, China would feel embarrassed and may become more forthcoming
to pour political resources in order to get the DPRK back on the negotiation
table of the six-party talks. However, whether China's diplomatic engagement
with the DPRK may succeed or not will be most significantly affected by how the
Obama administration may respond," said Furukawa. "I doubt whether there will
be another new UN Security Council resolution after the launch."
There is little doubt that the North Korea is seeking the spotlight while
setting the marker for future negotiations with the Barack Obama
administration, according to Dr Jing-dong Yuan, director of the East Asia
Non-proliferation Program at the California-based James Martin Center for
Non-proliferation Studies. In this regard, the launch will also provide China
with insights into the Obama foreign policymaking apparatus.
"Should the test turn out to be successful, it means now DPRK can target
Alaska. You add the nuclear factor and this could be serious development and a
major challenge to the Obama administration," said Yuan, who sees the visit by
Wang Jiarui as an attempt by Beijing to plead with Pyongyang to return to the
negotiation table and fulfill its obligations under the six-party talks. Kim,
on the other hand, appears determined to show the world that North Korea has no
master and is in complete control of its own destiny at a time when China
appears determined to minimize any negative impact as a result of this launch.
"This missile launch itself is not unexpected, and will not alter or undermine
China's status as a major power in the region that can play and is increasingly
expected to play, a more prominent role in dealing with the DPRK. The question
is whether Beijing is willing to be even more proactive than what it already
has been so far, and how it will weigh the costs and benefits regarding various
policy options," said Yuan. "The instability created, including further delay
in the resolution of the nuclear issue, is certainly not beneficial to China.
Beijing is seriously looking at the various options it has to keep the damage
to a minimum and to retain maximum flexibility in its response."
NEXT: North Korea learns from Iran
Peter J Brown is a satellite journalist from Maine USA.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
