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Time to tap Russia and China on North Korean denuclearisation

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In Brief

Diplomatic engagements between North Korea and Russia have raised the prospect that denuclearisation talks between the Pyongyang regime and the international community will resume. Russian envoy Grigory Logvinov pronounced in June 2015 that Moscow would not support any ‘behind the back’ agreement regarding North Korea’s nuclear program, but it could still play a significant role in getting Pyongyang to address the issue on a bilateral basis.

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Two developments encourage this prospect. First, North Korea’s economic ties with Russia have witnessed significant growth. Both countries declared 2015 as the ‘Year of Friendship’. In April 2015 they organised a meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission for Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation. Proposals are underway for cooperation in a variety of areas such as agriculture, energy, infrastructure and tourism.

Second, on 21 June, Choe Thae-bok, Speaker of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea, travelled to Moscow, presumably to ask for aid. Recent reports from the (North) Korean Central News Agency, substantiated by South Korean scientists, suggest that North Korea is gripped by a severe drought — a development that is bound to have a major impact on the state’s political economy.

On China’s end, its foreign ministry recently announced that it is willing to provide aid to North Korea in its time of distress, although Pyongyang’s nuclear program has put some strain on their bilateral relations. Given North Korea’s strained situation, this is the ideal time for both China and Russia to utilise their economic linkages with North Korea as a bargaining chip for starting denuclearisation talks.

But the two big powers hold different views on the issue. China has been taking a harder line in regard to North Korea’s nuclear program, while also growing closer to South Korea. During China–US talks in May, Beijing agreed that putting pressure on Pyongyang was important. But China’s official stance is in favour of denuclearisation of the entire Korean peninsula, including American nuclear weapons on South Korean soil.

Russia’s contrary position — as stated by envoy Logvinov — is that Moscow would not support any pact agreed in North Korea’s absence.

But North Korea has continued with ‘provocative actions’ such as firing short-range anti-ship missiles, carrying out live-firing artillery drills and threatening cyber warfare. Speculation over the reason for this show of belligerence focuses on its current economic plight. Kim Jong-un’s provocations are part of a larger effort to distract his people from other concerns such as the acute food shortage that is gripping the country.

Kim should recall the ‘Arduous March’ that North Korea experienced from 1994 to 1998, a period of intense economic distress exacerbated by a severe famine, during which hundreds of thousands of civilians perished. Then, a significant decline in public trust in the Kim regime, alongside the emergence of the black market economy — which gave enterprising North Koreans ways around the established state structure — posed a direct challenge to the government’s control. Kim Jong-un cannot afford to have a repeat of that dire situation, nor a mass exodus of desperate civilians.

But, despite, or indeed because of, these internal challenges, the North Korean government seems committed to centring its domestic national identity on its purported progress on the path to becoming a nuclear power ‘recognised by the US’. Experts have judged the state’s current nuclear capability to be subpar. But North Korea is determined to build up this narrative. This is a dangerous motivation because it closes off avenues for communication such as the Six-Party Talks. North Korea is currently not willing to participate in the talks if the agenda includes denuclearisation. But communication channels need to be kept open.

The time is ripe for actors that have economic influence and open lines of communication with North Korea — in particular China and Russia — to leverage their advantages in an effort to restart serious discussions regarding denuclearisation. But the actors need to bring something to the table in order to disincentivise North Korea from nuclearising. The international community needs to do much more to encourage actors like China and Russia to dissuade the Kim regime from its nuclearisation path.

One prospect for the future of a non-nuclear North Korea would be if it chooses to change its focus with regard to identity building. This would involve the creation of new priorities and a new ideology as the centrepiece of its state identity. Whether this alternative will rely on new economic priorities still remains to be seen.

But with the real presence of North Korea’s grey and black markets and the exposure of the younger generation — which accounts for 25 per cent of the population — to non-state media and culture, it is not unthinkable to imagine a state narrative amenable to greater economic growth and cooperation.

Akanksha Sharma is a research analyst at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

This article was originally posted here as RSIS Commentary No. 151/2015.

5 responses to “Time to tap Russia and China on North Korean denuclearisation”

  1. The last US nuclear weapons left South Korea in 1991. North Korea is never going to give up their nuclear weapons and China will never put any serious pressure on North Korea to give up their nukes for fear that N Korea will collapse. The US needs to state that US troops will not be based in the northern part of a unified Korea. Also offer a general amnesty tothe North Korean leadership so they will not feel like they need to fight to the death. North Korea is in its end stage with possibly only months or a few years left. However the worlds political leaders will do nothing until a mushroom cloud appears over some city and then they will form a commission to find themselves blameless.

    • The remark by Dennis that “… and China will never put any serious pressure on North Korea to give up their nukes for fear that N Korea will collapse”, to the most may seem partially correct and it is also possibly very misleading. Yes, China probably does not wish to see North Korea collapse, but it is not in China’s interest to see North Korea become a nuclear power, given its ramifications for geopolitical balance and the excuses the US and Japan use to station missile defence systems in East Asian countries. However, one should not overstate the influence of China on North Korea, given the wayward and unpredictable behaviour of the latter. China has been embarrassed by North Korea many times in recent years.
      The prediction that North Korea is in its end stage is likely to be a pure speculation and may well not turn out to be true. Certainly it is premature to put hope on such a speculation. If that was true, then why is there an urgent need to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear power? We could all just simply wait for its collapse and then get rid off its nuclear capacity.
      The US should probably not station any troops in the Korean peninsular at all as opposed to not station in the North as you argued.

  2. North Korea does not need to become a nuclear power, they are a nuclear power having already tested 3 bombs. North Korea exists only because of Chinese aid and trade, if China was to seal its border with N Korea they would collapse in a matter of weeks or few months, that sounds like power over N Korea to me. Missile defense does not work and S Korea will probably not allow THADD to be deployed. The 28,000 US troops in S Korea are there to dissuade a N Korean attack on the South. The US has used its political influence to stop S Korea and Japan from becoming nuclear powers. China never did the same with N Korea. I would give China 3 months to disarm N Korea or the US should make sure that Japan and S Korea become nuclear powers. The fact that the leaders of S Korea and Japan have chosen not to become nuclear powers is treason to their nations abetted by the US. When N Korea is confronted with collapse there is a good chance they might launch their nuclear missiles. They have no missiles that can reach the US, there three choices will be Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing.

    • I am sure both the South Korean and the Japanese leaders know much better than you in terms of what is best for their respective countries. They should know far better what is in their own countries’ interests. It would be arrogant to assume they don’t know. I am not sure either country wishes to have become a nuclear power either with or without the persuasion from the US. Further I am not sure that China didn’t apply pressure to North Korea to stop nuclear testing. The public records indicate China did, contrary to your claim that it didn’t. Simply ask a question, given Beijing could become a target of North Korea’s nuclear missiles, is that in China’s interest to not pressure for the North to stop testing?
      There is a simple sanity test here.

  3. North Korea tested nuclear weapons in 2006, 2009 and 2013, so where was Chinese pressure on North Korea. China supplies the vast majority of the oil and gasoline to North Korea and China has kept the oil flowing. In February of 2012 the US signed the leap year agreement with N Korea to stop nuclear and missile testing in return for 240,000 tons of food aid in a form (not white rice) to aid the poor in N Korea. Two weeks later N Korea announced that they would test a new missile in a few weeks, thus breaking the agreement. They did this because China had agreed to increase their food aid to North Korea. South Korea and Japan have chosen to rely on the US military power (US nuclear weapons) as their defense against a madman with nuclear weapons. They might want to talk to the people of South Vietnam and Cambodia and ask them about US military promises.

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