China has its own North Korea scenario
Chinese President Xi Jinping. / Reuters
By Jung Min-ho
China is the only country that can stop North Korea from becoming a fully fledged nuclear power. But Beijing will not take that step, even if that means the U.S. could attack the North, experts say.
China’s oil supply provides key support to the Kim Jong-un regime, which would collapse in no time without it. Yet China has chosen to provide resources Pyongyang badly needs and will likely continue to do so, says Boston College professor of political science Robert Ross.
“China opposes nuclear weapons in North Korea, but it has other more immediate priorities, including preventing regime collapse and loss of its control over nuclear weapons,” he told The Korea Times.
“These objectives are more important than coercion to achieve immediate denuclearization. Thus China resists excessive sanctions that could lead to regime collapse.”
In some ways, he notes, South Korea shares this Chinese perspective, as it also opposes excessive U.S. sanctions that could destabilize the regime and its control over nuclear weapons, which could lead to war.
Some reports suggest North Korea may be just a year or less away from developing a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile that could hit the U.S. mainland.
With that prospect, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to use any means possible, including military action, to stop it.
Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions clearly also concern Beijing, which believes nuclear weapons actually tighten U.S. alliances and missile defenses in East Asia.
But unlike the U.S. and Japan, China does not see the weapons as an immediate threat, according to Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project in New York.
“But I suspect that top Chinese and North Korean officials think all the talk about preventive war is a bluff,” he says.
Apparently, China does not rule out the possibility of another war in Korea.
There have been media reports that China is quietly building a network of refugee camps along its 1,416-kilometer border with North Korea as Beijing prepares for the human exodus that a conflict might unleash.
The China Mobile document, which started circulating on social media and overseas Chinese websites three months ago, says, “Due to cross-border tensions … the (Chinese Communist) party committee and government of Changbai County have proposed setting up five refugee camps in the county.”
“A surprise U.S. attack on the regime ― referred to in the media as a possible ‘bloody nose’ attack ― could destabilize or defeat it,” says Andreas Fulda, a professor Nottingham University School of Politics and International Relations.
“A flood of North Korean refugees to the northeastern part of China would almost certainly follow. This shows how concerned the Communist Party is about the regime collapsing.”
The influx of North Korean refugees would create a major problem for the Chinese government. Would ordinary Chinese citizens help the refugees or see them as unwanted competitors for scarce resources?
“If Chinese people, especially in the economically deprived northeastern provinces, turn out to be hostile to the refugees, this will put the Communist Party in a very difficult position,” Fulda says.
“On the one hand there would be considerable international pressure to provide shelter and support for the refugees. But domestically, such support by the Chinese government could erode the fragile public support for China’s authoritarian political regime.
“A fractured and destabilized Korean Peninsula thus could also destabilize the authoritarian Chinese political system.”
China’s concern is all about the regime’s stability, which could be seriously damaged by either excessive sanctions or war. Therefore, for China, one option is not any better than the other.
While both scenarios are detrimental to China, the Communist Party does not have sufficient leverage to prevent the Trump administration from attacking North Korea. “All China can do is to raise concerns about the dangers of such a military intervention,” Fulda says.