Though the situation is calming, North Korea remains a security challenge for both China and South Korea and is likely to dominate talks between Park and Chinese President Xi Jinping. But achieving a long-lasting peace on the Korean peninsula will require nothing short of joint efforts by all major players in Northeast Asia, especially China and the United States.
President Park’s planned visit speaks volumes of how far the Sino–ROK relationship has come since the two countries normalised relations in 1992. For China, South Korea is a good neighbour and reliable friend. Park’s visit demonstrates the warm relationship between the two countries as well as the close personal ties between her and Xi. This is in contrast to relations with North Korea, which while traditionally described as close as ‘lips and teeth’, have deteriorated in recent years given North Korea’s nuclear testing and the execution of Kim Jong-un’s uncle and China point-man Jang Song-thaek.
The China visit makes economic and political sense for South Korea. China has been South Korea’s largest trading partner for over a decade. South Korea trades more with China than with the US and Japan combined. Both South Korea and China are critical of what they see as Japanese historical revisionism: in particular, they are disappointed with Prime Minster Shinzo Abe’s 14 August statement. Their common interest is in peacebuilding in East Asia, a peace built on truthful reflection on the painful past.
For China, Park’s visit also shows that South Korean foreign policy, in contrast to Japan’s, is more independent from Washington. The Japanese media reported that the United States had pressured Park to cancel her upcoming trip to Beijing. Despite denying this, the US government’s concerns are understandable. First of all, the United States does not want to send a signal in favour of China’s sabre-rattling military parade in Beijing. It wants its allies to follow its lead and not attend the parade. And it does not want to encourage China’s potential military adventurism, especially when China is embroiled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
Washington is especially concerned about the timing of the parade. The Chinese government has stated that the military parade, part of the 70th anniversary celebration, is not aimed at any particular country. Yet given the delicate state of Sino–Japanese relations today, it may unnecessarily raise tensions in the region. The United States does not have any problem with South Korea developing robust economic and even political relations with China. But it feels deeply uncomfortable when South Korea moves closer to China while Japan–South Korea relations remain frosty. The United States ‘rebalance’ toward Asia is significantly complicated if two of its key allies there are not getting along.
During the upcoming Park–Xi summit, President Park is likely to urge China to play a more active role in persuading North Korea to return to the Six-Party Talks. But China–DPRK relations have been weakening and Pyongyang does not take Beijing’s advice seriously these days. Kim Jong-un will not go to Beijing for the commemoration event, either because he did not receive the invitation from China or because he rejected it. In the midst of the current tensions, North Korea has reportedly claimed that it will not heed Beijing’s call for restraint since such a strategy does not work anymore.
South Korea needs to be realistic and patient. As many have argued, China’s leverage over North Korea may have been overrated. It really will take concerted efforts by all major players, including efforts to revive the China–Japan–South Korea trilateral summit later this year as well as strong US–China cooperation, to resolve the deadlock on the Korean peninsula. Unfortunately, Beijing and Washington seem to have outsourced their responsibilities to each other regarding the North Korea issue. They seem powerless or uninterested in dealing with North Korea and its young leader now.
Two events in 2015 have both raised hopes and created frustrations for observers of the Korean peninsula. The first was the international agreement reached by the United States, China and other major powers with Iran over the latter’s nuclear program; the other was the resumption of diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba after decades of hostility. When can a solution to the North Korea problem be found? The latest tensions on the peninsula highlight the urgency of this issue.
With the presidential election season gearing up in the United States, North Korea is unlikely to become a priority issue for the departing Obama administration. China, on the other hand, is suffering from a deteriorating relationship with North Korea and its influence over Pyongyang has drastically declined. In this regard, President Park’s diplomatic activism comes at a critical time and hopefully will lead to positive results on the Korean peninsula in the years ahead.
Zhiqun Zhu is a professor of political science and international relations at Bucknell University.
Professor Zhu wants us to believe China is trying to denuclearize North Korea but N Korea won’t listen. Then he tells us that China’s leverage is overrated and its influence over North Korea has drastically declined. China has absolute power over N Korea if China would seal its border with the North, they would collapse in a matter of weeks. China’s aid and trade is what keeps North Korea alive. North Korea is a useful pawn to the Chinese and that is why they keep the Kim family mafia in charge of North Korea.
Thank you for your comments. If China just seals its border with NK, and NK will collapse in a matter of weeks, how wonderful that will be! Just as we should not overestimate China’s influence, we cannot underestimate NK’s resilience. Some SK economists have suggested that NK’s economy has been growing at a decent rate in recent years. Grass-roots free-market/black market is booming. NK is not as vulnerable as you believe. It is simply wrong to think NK is a pawn to China. Again, do not underestimate Kim Jong-un and NK leadership’s intelligence and survival strategy. NK has been a pretty agile shrimp among whales. Perhaps you can ask a different question: despite deteriorating relations with NK, why hasn’t China abandoned NK yet? I urge you to think about the NK issue from a broader East Asian security perspective.
I assume that the cryptic “broader East Asian security perspective” translates into what China wants. China does not want a unified Korea aligned with the US. China definitely does not want the Chinese people to witness the fall of a communist country as they might get ideas about the CCP. China provides 90% of N Korea’s energy needs and has an 80% share of N Korean trade. North Korea could only last a matter of weeks or a best a few months without Chinese aid and trade. If this cut off of trade was caused by the reckless policies of Kim Jong-eun, how would the North Korean elites react. I don’t think they will stand at their posts and go down with Kim jr. The world has given North Korea over 50 billion in aid over the last 50 years and this aid has allowed the Kim family to stay in power. Those who provided this aid share in the guilt of the NK crimes against humanity.
Many questionable assumptions in the comment. “East Asian security” is neither cryptic nor means what China wants. Ask what the US wants and what Japan wants, for example. A COMMON interest in East Asian security is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. A unified Korea will be close to China economically and politically regardless of whether it will be a US ally. Recent developments are clear indications. 90% or 80% are gross exaggerations though the exact number is hard to know. Marcus Noland and others reported recently that according to a group of NK refugees living in SK now, Kim Jong-un’s support base is very solid among the public despite his dictatorial rule. The ripple/domino effect of communist countries’ collapse is history now, and that happened around 1989-90. North Korea’s collapse is not going to have any impact on the CCP today–Many in China despise NK leaders and hope NK will collapse, but there is no linkage between NK’s fate and the CCP’s future. Carrots or sticks, but are there any other options? My argument has always been that all these powers need to work together to develop a more effective and future-oriented NK policy that reflects the history and reality of East Asia.
Professor Zhu does not note one other possibility: perhaps China wants N Korea to remain as a thorn in the side of the USA, Japan, and S Korea. Ie, its erratic actions and underlying nuclear threat keep these other 3 countries off balance and less capable of containing China in its own expansionist economic and security goals. Thus, China gives NK enough aid to keep it from collapsing while also participating in the 6 party talks, etc. Is it trying to play both sides of the fence for its own gains?
Richard, your observation is interesting. China is unwilling to abandon NK, so we can assume that NK still has some values to China. Based on my conversations with Chinese scholars and diplomats, I have the impression that China thinks the US needs to talk to NK directly. They argue it’s a US problem. I think it’s a US-China problem. If the two big powers do not trust each other and do not share a common vision of a future Korean peninsula, they will not work together. Another possibility is that China really does not have a NK strategy now since it’s not a priority issue.