By Lee Seong-hyon
The view that China would not "abandon" North Korea, despite repeated provocations by North Korea, has been recently strengthened in the context of U.S. policy of "pivot to Asia," which China regards as Washington's ploy to contain China. Both U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) and Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) name China as a rival, signaling a return to great power competition. As the mistrust and conflict between Washington and Beijing deepens, North Korea's strategic value to China is bound to increase.
Against the backdrop, there is now a notion that China-North Korea relations are like U.S.-Israel relations. The U.S. has all the leverage over Israel, but Israel doesn't listen to Washington. The danger of leaning on this notion is obvious: it sees geopolitics as a fixed destiny and there's nothing we can do about it. As a policy, this would serve as a self-defeating recipe.
However, history shows that Beijing regarded Pyongyang as "expendable" even during the Korean War when China aided North Korea. In other words, China's policy toward North Korea is not fixed but fluid, and that Washington and Seoul could inspire changes within China's policy toward North Korea. The cardinal question is to figure out under which conditions China is likely to change its attitude toward North Korea?
Over the years, there have been periodic bouts of Chinese rage over North Korea. As a recent instance, in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test in 2013, Chinese intellectuals began to publicly voice "China should abandon North Korea," a long-time Cold War ally of Beijing.
Some at that time also argued that Beijing should assist Seoul to "absorb" Pyongyang to form a unified Korea. They insisted that although China and North Korea belong to the same socialist bloc, the differences between the two are larger than those between China and the West. At the same time, they also maintained that the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, signed in 1961, has lost its bona fide relevance today.
On another occasion, during the "fire and fury" standoff in 2017, between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, an editorial in China's Global Times declared: "If North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral." Washington and its allies were keenly interested in the part about China staying "neutral." They interpreted it as a vow not to intervene if the North Korea crisis became violent.
Meanwhile, however, the view that China would not "abandon" North Korea, despite repeated regionally destabilizing acts, is still gaining traction as well. In this vein, the traditional Sino-North Korean relationship, known as the "lips and the teeth," still remains relevant in many aspects.
During the April 2017 summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the two leaders appeared to have found common ground in agreeing on the grave nature of the North Korean nuclear issue, but they failed to reach an agreement on how to solve the issue.
The U.S. and China also don't share sufficient strategic trust in East Asia, as evidenced by their dissension over the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea, the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense).
What's more, it is highly improbable that North Korea's nuclear issue will be resolved in the near future. Under these circumstances, Washington and Beijing are unlikely to act in unison on the North Korean issue either.
However, a careful review on Sino-North Korean historical relations, surprisingly, shows that China regarded North Korea "expendable" during the Korean War when the U.S. forces were marching toward the Yalu River in the fall of 1950, posing an imminent security threat to the newly established People's Republic of China. (This story will be shared next time). It provides support to the view that China's policy toward North Korea could be flexible, insinuating that Washington and Seoul could inspire changes within China's policy toward North Korea.
Furthermore, China's recent robust participation on the U.N. sanctions on North Korea received keen attention from both Washington and Seoul. Concurrently, China's stance on North Korea and, by extension, its calculus on the Korean unification issue, has received increasing attention from concerned government institutions and academic communities as well.
Taken together, it will be an utmost priority for South Korea to institute its North Korea policy, which is neither based on a self-defeating notion of "China will never abandon North Korea" nor a wishful thinking notion of "China will solve the North Korean problem." It also has to factor into the deepening U.S.-China discord. The challenge is not small. But it's not impossible.
Lee Seong-hyon (sunnybbsfs@gmail.com), Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Sejong Institute.
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Against the backdrop, there is now a notion that China-North Korea relations are like U.S.-Israel relations. The U.S. has all the leverage over Israel, but Israel doesn't listen to Washington. The danger of leaning on this notion is obvious: it sees geopolitics as a fixed destiny and there's nothing we can do about it. As a policy, this would serve as a self-defeating recipe.
However, history shows that Beijing regarded Pyongyang as "expendable" even during the Korean War when China aided North Korea. In other words, China's policy toward North Korea is not fixed but fluid, and that Washington and Seoul could inspire changes within China's policy toward North Korea. The cardinal question is to figure out under which conditions China is likely to change its attitude toward North Korea?
Over the years, there have been periodic bouts of Chinese rage over North Korea. As a recent instance, in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test in 2013, Chinese intellectuals began to publicly voice "China should abandon North Korea," a long-time Cold War ally of Beijing.
Some at that time also argued that Beijing should assist Seoul to "absorb" Pyongyang to form a unified Korea. They insisted that although China and North Korea belong to the same socialist bloc, the differences between the two are larger than those between China and the West. At the same time, they also maintained that the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, signed in 1961, has lost its bona fide relevance today.
On another occasion, during the "fire and fury" standoff in 2017, between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, an editorial in China's Global Times declared: "If North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral." Washington and its allies were keenly interested in the part about China staying "neutral." They interpreted it as a vow not to intervene if the North Korea crisis became violent.
Meanwhile, however, the view that China would not "abandon" North Korea, despite repeated regionally destabilizing acts, is still gaining traction as well. In this vein, the traditional Sino-North Korean relationship, known as the "lips and the teeth," still remains relevant in many aspects.
During the April 2017 summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the two leaders appeared to have found common ground in agreeing on the grave nature of the North Korean nuclear issue, but they failed to reach an agreement on how to solve the issue.
The U.S. and China also don't share sufficient strategic trust in East Asia, as evidenced by their dissension over the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea, the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense).
What's more, it is highly improbable that North Korea's nuclear issue will be resolved in the near future. Under these circumstances, Washington and Beijing are unlikely to act in unison on the North Korean issue either.
However, a careful review on Sino-North Korean historical relations, surprisingly, shows that China regarded North Korea "expendable" during the Korean War when the U.S. forces were marching toward the Yalu River in the fall of 1950, posing an imminent security threat to the newly established People's Republic of China. (This story will be shared next time). It provides support to the view that China's policy toward North Korea could be flexible, insinuating that Washington and Seoul could inspire changes within China's policy toward North Korea.
Furthermore, China's recent robust participation on the U.N. sanctions on North Korea received keen attention from both Washington and Seoul. Concurrently, China's stance on North Korea and, by extension, its calculus on the Korean unification issue, has received increasing attention from concerned government institutions and academic communities as well.
Taken together, it will be an utmost priority for South Korea to institute its North Korea policy, which is neither based on a self-defeating notion of "China will never abandon North Korea" nor a wishful thinking notion of "China will solve the North Korean problem." It also has to factor into the deepening U.S.-China discord. The challenge is not small. But it's not impossible.
Lee Seong-hyon (sunnybbsfs@gmail.com), Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Sejong Institute.
