Time for action

BENEATH THE VENEER OF FRIENDLY ALLIANCE, North Korea has been a persistent thorn in Beijing's side. Given that Chinese policy-makers see themselves as skillful practitioners of realpolitik, they should be well placed to intervene and press the North to negotiate an agreement that meets US and Chinese security concerns.

The most striking aspect of Beijing's recent policy is the extent to which the North has behaved in ways that challenge Chinese national interests and got away with it. An analysis of some common Chinese explanations for non-intervention suggests that a change of approach is in order. Intervention is not a choice. Were Beijing to continue its present course, it would be to invite US-led intervention in Chinas strategic backyard, resulting in a significant loss of credibility.

Chinese academics and policy-makers often say they have too few carrots and even less sticks when it comes to North Korea. The claim is that outsiders exaggerate the degree to which China has leverage. This sounds more like a rationalisation of present policy, and is in any case wrong. No other state has as much leverage over Pyongyang as Beijing.

China is North Korea's most important trading partner. Last year trade hit more than $700 million, up a third on the previous year. With the cut-off of US fuel supplies to Pyongyang in December, China is believed to supply ninety percent or more of the country's oil. Additionally, in the last few years Beijing is estimated to have provided a million tons of wheat and rice annually. It has also recently increased sales of grain and vegetables.

Chinese government actions also run counter to the lack of carrots and sticks argument. In March, when North Korea stalled on the idea of negotiating with the US on the nuclear weapons issue, Beijing cut off the oil supply for three days to push Pyongyang into talks. The result was a sudden change of heart.

INSTABILITY THREATENS

A second view is that even if China could pressure North Korea, such action would be counter-productive. According to this argument, North Korea is geographically near northeast China and anything less than continuous support would cause massive instability along the border. North Korea would also like China to believe that unless aid is maintained at fairly high levels, regime collapse will occur, with adverse consequences for Beijing.

The first problem with the instability-collapse argument is that by subscribing so fervently to it, the Chinese play into Pyongyang's hands and assume the burden for the North's failed economic system. Aware that China fears instability and can be frightened into bailing it out, Pyongyang has little incentive to reform. Its deliberate choice not to adopt comprehensive economic reforms is the root cause of the flow of migrants into northeast China. By absorbing migrants, China has become a safety valve for North Korea and tacitly underpins the present situation.

Two hundred thousand North Koreans are estimated to have fled to northern China in 2000. After a series of high-profile defection attempts to foreign embassies in Beijing provoked a crackdown by Chinese authorities, this figure is reported to have dropped to a still significant one hundred thousand the following year.

DESTABILISING

The second problem with the instability-collapse argument is that it minimises Pyongyang's ongoing and active role in destabilising China's periphery. North Korea uses the assurance of Chinese diplomatic support to engage in military brinkmanship, keeping the entire northeast Asian region on edge.

Beijing's assistance to Pyongyang generates surprisingly little purchase in enhancing security along its periphery. Despite continued diplomatic and economic support, the regime shows little sign of acting in ways that remotely support Chinese national interests.

In 1998, North Korea launched a missile over Japan, prompting Tokyo to agree to cooperate with Washington in developing a regional theatre missile defence system. The Chinese are opposed to such cooperation for a variety of reasons, not least because it would encourage Japan's perceived remilitarisation. If successfully developed, such a system could be configured to cover Taiwan. That would make it harder to resolve the Taiwan question on terms favourable to the mainland.

POLICY PARALYSED

More recently, despite repeated Chinese foreign ministry declarations that the Korean peninsula should be nuclear-free, the North has taken a contrary view. During Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly's visit to Pyongyang last October, North Korea admitted that it had been secretly working on a nuclear weapons programme, in flagrant violation of the 1994 framework agreement it signed with President Bill Clinton's administration. In January, Pyongyang withdrew from the non-proliferation treaty, and for good measure, expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Despite Chinese calls in late February for all sides to enhance regional stability, North Korea test-fired a missile into the sea between South Korea and Japan. On April 30, the North Korean foreign ministry declared that US hostility had compelled it to develop 'a necessaiy deterrent force.' On May 12, it reiterated its decision to pull out of a 1992 agreement with South Korea to maintain a nuclear-free zone on the peninsula.

The working assumption of all players on the North Korean issue - that Pyongyang is actively seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction - was confirmed by the June 9 statement that a 'nuclear deterrent' is required. As it stands, Beijing's fear that pressurising North Korea will cause instability effectively paralyses Chinese foreign policy. If China does not act soon, the odds are President Kim Jong-il will precipitate a crisis.

OFF BALANCE

A third view is that the Chinese are really quite happy with the status quo, and that they are content to see Washington struggle with the issue. Here, the real target of Chinese foreign policy is not Pyongyang but the US. Such an approach would reflect the traditional Chinese view of diplomacy that superior strategy is the key to victory over superior capabilities.

In a unipolar world, so the argument goes, the Chinese need to keep the US off-balance. What better way to do that than to maintain improving bilateral relations with Washington, even while undermining it on the North Korean issue? This view is myopic.

It would hardly be in China's national interests if the US were compelled by North Korean intransigence to take action, military or otherwise. Even moderates like the Senate Foreign Relations Chairman, Senator Richard Lugar, now say that the threat of military action, no matter how risky, must underpin any future talks between the US and North Korea. In response to a question on American television channel NBC's Meet the Press about the need to back diplomacy with military force, Lugar said: 'I think that that always has to be there as a very strong possibility.'

INITIATIVE SURRENDERED

The stark reality is that Beijing can no longer say, as it has previously, that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme is a bilateral issue between North Korea and America. If China does not persuade the North Koreans to finally settle this issue, then Washington will have to examine the entire spectrum of policy instruments, including a military strike.

If the US does use force against North Korea, it will not be the first time the Chinese have suffered a significant strategic setback because of Pyongyang. The 1950 North Korean invasion of the South made it politically impossible for President Harry Truman to allow Taiwan to come under mainland control. To prevent a communist invasion, the US Seventh Fleet was subsequently inserted into the Taiwan Straits.

Why are the Chinese so willing to jeopardise their national interests to save the Kim Jong-il regime? By all accounts, the North Koreans repay past and current Chinese aid with ingratitude and insults. Beijings policy is a passive one where the strategic initiative has been surrendered. It continually finds itself reacting to provocative North Korean actions that undercut Chinese interests.

The regime's propensity for aggressive and high-risk moves undermines Beijing and validates the views of hawks in President George Bush's administration that engagement with Pyongyang should be a prelude to building a regional coalition that will finally resolve the North Korean problem - by force if necessary. Since the failure of the April trilateral talks in Beijing, a more realistic appraisal has begun to emerge in China. However, without a concerted attempt to pressure Pyongyang, the leadership there shows little sign of behaving responsibly.

Chinese policy has the inadvertent effect of emboldening North Korea on a path that destabilises the Asia-Pacific region. As one Chinese academic has been quoted as saying, it is time for Beijing to normalise relations with its communist neighbour. Rather than indulging behaviour that jeopardises China's national interests, it is high time China seriously pressurised North Korea to work out a verifiable agreement with Washington that eliminates its weapons of mass destruction programme.