SPEAKING FREELY Passing the buck on North Korea
By Nadine Godehardt and David Shim
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
Does history repeat itself? Certainly, every time the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) ignites a rocket or a nuclear bomb, journalists, policy makers, and scholars point their fingers at China. It is usually claimed that Beijing should finally step up against its "long-term ally" and regain control over its "little brother".
This was the case after North Korean rocket launches and nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2012 and, more recently, last February. After all, this incident portrays just another example of how Pyongyang (again) tramples on Chinese interests which are maintaining
regional stability in Northeast Asia, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and keeping North Korea as a "strategic buffer zone".
Commentators from Asia, Europe or the United States seem to agree upon only one thing: that China holds the key to political change in North Korea. Even inside China, skepticism about the traditional foreign policy interests in North Korea is on the rise. Taking a specific look at the economic dimension, a Chinese solution might sound convincing.
North Korea clearly depends on Chinese food and oil supplies. Beijing ensures up to 80% of North Korea's energy and the dependency of cross-border food aid is even higher. Consequently, China could cut off North Korea as it already has done symbolically in the past.
However, what would be the consequences? Rising political and social unrest in North Korea that would lead to a military conflict in the region or even prompt a preemptive military strike by the US? Massive flows of refugees crossing the Chinese-North Korean border? Some kind of reunification which means that Chinese and US troops directly face each other? There are many potential scenarios up in the air and each one of them underscores why serious doubts remain about whether China alone can actually take the lead.
China is clearly overrated in its ability to determine North Korean foreign policy behavior. If Pyongyang's actions demonstrate one thing, it is that the DPRK is a sovereign state which makes sovereign decisions. The record shows that North Korea, like any other country in the world, has its own decision-making process when faced with important foreign policy options. Besides, Kim Jong-eun might be a young, inexperienced leader who has to deal with a massive burden of leadership but, quite frankly, he is not stupid. He would never do anything to actually jeopardize the regime's survival.
In addition, China is the wrong addressee of the demands urging it to act on North Korea. The reason is simple: since the beginning of the nuclear controversy in the early 1990s the main target of North Korean foreign policy is not the People's Republic of China but the United States of America. In other words, the North Koreans do not want security assurances, diplomatic recognition and trade normalization from the Chinese but from the Americans.
The conclusion of a peace treaty, the normalization of diplomatic relations as well as the suspension of economic and financial sanctions are steps that only the US can undertake. Even Kim Jong-eun's latest coup - his meeting with ex-NBA player Dennis Rodman - sends this message to Obama. Unfortunately for Kim, Rodman has never been taken quite seriously by the US public (not to mention by the US government).
The history of nuclear negotiations confirms that only when North Korea and the United States directly talked to each other, although sometimes facilitated through Chinese initiatives, progress on the nuclear question and on regional security was made. This was the case in the mid-1990s when bilateral talks resulted in the so-called Agreed Framework, en passant avoiding a military confrontation in the region, and in the mid-2000s when direct negotiations spurred the Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks.
While the idea of bilateral negotiations, possibly enhanced through Chinese and South Korean participation, between North Korea and the United States may not be new, it is, however, well worth repeating - especially after years of an impasse in this essential matter of global security. But bilateral talks on how to deal with Pyongyang also mean that both sides and particularly the Obama administration need to re-think the potential outcome of such talks.
The denuclearization of North Korea should not represent a top priority any longer whereas the acceptance - clearly not consent - of a nuclear North Korea could facilitate another decade of cold (even though very cold) peace in Northeast Asia. Consequently, acceptance might not be the worst option after all.
However, this proposal stands in clear contrast to the assumed goal of the UN Security Resolution 2094 which expands the scope of UN sanctions that was first imposed on North Korea in 2006 under resolution 1718. 2006 still marks a key moment in China-DPRK relations.
Not only did China collaborate with the US on UN sanctions but the first nuclear test also brought (at least briefly) an end to China's soft approach towards North Korea. Moreover, as Shi Yinhong highlights, China's "exertion of economic leverage had too high a cost" since the country temporally lost "all its diplomatic influence on Pyongyang". [1]
To a certain extent, the relationship, particularly the confidence, between China and North Korea has never been fully reestablished. Thus, economic and financial sanctions have not yet prevented North Korea's nuclearization. In contrast, they rather push all involved parties to point bellicose statement at each other and increase regional tension. In addition, sanctions have further weakened China's diplomatic persuasiveness over North Korea as well as the possibility for China to act as an accepted broker or facilitator between North Korea and the US.
Clearly the situation seems different today. After all, it took China and the US almost a month to come forward with a new resolution. But do the new sanctions really pinpoint a revision of China's policies towards North Korea? Are these sanctions a game changer? The answer is no. Beijing's position is still "half willing and half unwilling".
In other words, not only does the US have to re-think their policy but so also does the Chinese leadership. Usually, Beijing regards the two goals of denuclearization and stability of the Korean Peninsula as inherently entwined. The recent developments, however, underscore that it is impossible to hold on to both political directions at the same time, in other words "you can't eat your cake and have it too". [2] Thus, China must decide about the future direction of its North Korean policy, even though this means to give up one of the former interests.
Only then could China's role in this whole process again be that of a facilitator or door opener for direct US-DPRK negotiations similar to the Six-Party process where Beijing is host and chair of the denuclearization talks involving the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the United States.
China's new foreign policy team possesses all abilities (See China can defuse North Korea time-bomb, Asia Times Online, March 26, 2013) to kick-start fresh negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington. It is time for both the United States and China to take the lead and finally finish what they began almost two decades ago.
Notes:
1. Shi Yinhong (2009). China's Dilemma over the North Korean Nuclear Problem. In Yufan Hao, C.X. George Wei, and Lowell Dittmer. Challenges to Chinese Foreign Policy. Diplomacy, Globalization, and the next world power. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, p.178; 179.
2. See Wu Xu's statement on the issue. Available here.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. Articles submitted for this section allow our readers to express their opinions and do not necessarily meet the same editorial standards of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
Dr Nadine Godehardt works at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin. Dr David Shim is associate research fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg.
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