Sukhee Han is currently the assistant professor of Chinese studies at Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.

China’s Response to North Korea’s Second Nuclear Test.

Having detonated its first nuclear device in October 2006, North Korea conducted its second nuclear test on May 25, 2009. Having consistently attempted to dissuade the North from such tests, China has been infuriated by the North’s defiance of Chinese advice and interests. Immediately after the 2009 test, China released a statement almost identical to the one it announced in the wake of the 2006 test. Beijing’s unprecedented wrath and “resolute opposition” to Pyongyang’s unmannerly behavior had been clearly expressed in the 2006 statement. In the 2009 statement, the Chinese government “strongly demands” that Pyongyang abide by its non-nuclearization commitments, “stop actions that may lead to a further deterioration of the situation,” and “return to the track of the Six-Party Talks.” Furthermore, China’s subsequent vote in favor of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874, which was designed to impose tougher sanctions on the Pyongyang regime than its previous resolution passed in 2006, seemed to indicate that China may implement a strategic shift away from North Korea and may also increase its strategic cooperation with the international community in dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue.

Witnessing China’s stern behavior toward the North, some China watchers in Washington and Seoul have argued that North Korea’s second nuclear test, along with a series of other provocations in the first half of 2009, which included a rocket launch and a complete withdrawal from the Six-Party Talks, have prompted China to reconsider its long-standing policy of amity toward North Korea. In contrast to its traditional policy, China since the 2009 nuclear test has not hesitated to make it clear in its official statements that North Korea has become a liability than a strategic asset, and that it was not satisfied with North Korea’s arbitrary behavior threatening the stability of the Korean Peninsula.

Remarkably open discussions about North Korea have also been permitted in the Chinese academia and media. In the debates, some Chinese analysts have criticized their government for its failure to get tough with North Korea; others have also advocated for Beijing to take a firmer stance toward North Korea. These debates seem to be a departure from the traditional brotherly attitudes many Chinese have shared concerning North Korea, and also serve as convincing reasons for many experts to argue that China may change its policy toward North Korea.

At the same time, however, China has made clear that it intends to continue its traditional policy of friendship toward North Korea. U.S. foreign policy circles have frequently commented that the Chinese leadership has become increasingly angry at the Kim Jong-il regime, especially in the wake of the second nuclear test, and that Beijing is willing and able to use its leverage to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. In contrast, however, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, during his visit to Pyongyang to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of PRC-DPRK(People’s Republic of China-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) diplomatic relations, reassured North Korea of its economic patronage by providing a number of economic measures for expanding China’s economic exchanges with the North. Furthermore, the recent visit of Liang Guanglie, China’s defense minister, to North Korea has also consolidated the Sino–North Korean military alliance. His avowal of “China’s willingness to have closer military contacts with the DPRK” must have provided more confidence for the North Korean leaders in dealing with post–nuclear test reactions.

Given this situation, that China’s national interest concerning North Korea has been the maintenance of peace and stability is reconfirmed. On the one hand, in order to keep Pyongyang from further undermining peninsular security, Beijing has resolutely opposed North Korea’s provocations. China’s statements have emphasized its diplomatic pursuit of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and have also underscored that China, as a great power, acknowledges that it shares responsibility for preserving regional order and stability. On the other hand, China still places more importance on the maintenance of the status quo, in the sense of supporting the North Korean regime itself. China has exerted much more effort on behalf of the North’s survival than on behalf of its denuclearization. While China has in principle supported the UN economic sanctions on the North, it has never been sympathetic to the implementation of realistically effective sanctions.

In facing Kim Jong-il’s presumed health concerns and subsequent contingencies in the North, however, China has realized that the status quo on the Peninsula cannot always guarantee regional peace and stability. Given that the demise of Kim Jong-il himself is relatively imminent and certainly inevitable, China has to adopt a new approach to North Korea. China’s chief concern is to strengthen its economic and military grip over the North with the intention of keeping the regime afloat and its leadership under China’s control even after Kim Jong-il has passed from the scene.

Maintenance of the Traditionalist Approach

In the wake of the second nuclear test, the voices supporting a tougher stance on North Korea dominated the Chinese academia and media. The Chinese scholars arguing for a harder line are called the “strategists.” In general, the Chinese media coverage of North Korea has become more permissive in recent years. In comparison to the case of Strategy and Management, an academic journal forced to cease publication because it published an article criticizing North Korea’s leadership five years ago, it is noticeable that negative media coverage and academic criticisms of North Korea have become widespread in public. For example, a strategist wrote that China “cannot tolerate or accommodate” North Korea’s “extreme adventurist policy,” because Beijing’s “core interests” in regional stability lie in the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” If China wants to become a “world power,” the strategist added, it will have to “put its responsibilities and duties” to the international community above those to North Korea.

Another case indicating the shift of Chinese public sentiment regarding North Korea can be found in the Global Times [Huanqiu shibao], a newspaper with nationalist views on international affairs. It conducted a survey of twenty experts on international affairs right after the second nuclear test and found that half of the respondents supported more severe sanctions against North Korea. It also found that 30 percent of the respondents believed that the Six-Party Talks had failed. Reflective of Chinese domestic trends, China watchers in Washington and Seoul cautiously support such potential changes of policy in China toward North Korea. The China watchers base their current conclusions on two factors. The first is China’s domestic change in sentiment against the North. As a Chinese scholar commented, the North Korean nuclear test was a “slap in the face.” Observers in China believe that their country has consistently supported and provided assistance to North Korea, but their benevolence has been returned with an unexpected betrayal. The second factor is that China, as a rising power in pursuit of superpower status, is less able to continue to support North Korea’s misdemeanors at the cost of international responsibility.

However, the prospects for a change in China’s policy change toward North Korea look dim at the moment. First, it is more important for China to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula than to denuclearize it. Although China has declared that (1) peace and stability and (2) denuclearization are the two most important goals of its policy toward the Korean Peninsula, China places a much higher priority on peace and stability. Second, it is true that there have been a growing number of North Korea experts arguing for China’s policy change toward North Korea, but their voices are still in the minority. In general, they are relatively young in age and low in status, and have limited opportunities to take part in the decision-making process. Third, if we review the strategists’ argument for policy change, we find that they are not actually intending to implement a fundamental policy change. The key to China’s policy change toward the North is whether China accepts the possibility of a North Korean regime collapse. But given the current situation, China would never allow the collapse of the Kim Jong-il regime...(Continued)