China fears NK nuke leaks
By Oh Young-jin
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China fears environmental contamination and earthquakes that may be triggered by North Korea’s underground nuclear tests, possibly bringing Beijing to the breaking point of its patience with its blood-sealed but increasingly defiant ally, a Chinese scholar said during an interview Friday.
“Chinese people in the northeast region that borders North Korea are fearful that they will fall victim to contaminated water and seismic disruptions from its nuclear blasts,” Professor Zhu Feng of Nanjing University told The Korea Times. The interview was held before his lecture on the Korea-China-U.S. relationship, sponsored by the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.
Punggye-ri, North Hamgyong Province, which has served as the site for four of the five nuclear tests and will certainly accommodate a sixth, is within hundreds of kilometers of population centers in northeastern China. It is also quite close to Mt. Baekdu, a volcanic mountain that some experts fear may have another big eruption after the one in 946.
Zhu said this is part of the reason for what he calls “the Mar-a-Lago consensus,” named after the Florida retreat where Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump had their summit. One key agreement is to cooperate for the resolution of the North’s uncontrollable nuclear program.
Professor Zhu Feng
“President Xi is not as strongly bound by the two countries’ old ties as the older generations who fought against the U.S. in the (1950-1953) Korean War are,” Zhu said, adding that Xi’s patience is wearing thin because of the North’s continued provocative acts.
He attributed the Trump-Xi rapport to Beijing’s “massive feeling of detestation” for the North’s leader Kim Jong-un for his nuclear ambitions at the risk of compromising Xi’s modernization efforts for China.
Then, he suggested a Seoul-Beijing-Washington grand bargain on the endgame that will “overturn” the North diplomatically and peacefully. He didn’t say whether this means the ouster of its young dictator.
Regarding China’s proposal for a peace treaty that replaces the current truce on the Korean Peninsula, he said: “China wouldn’t insist on the U.S. withdrawal from the South as a condition for the peace regime.” This contradicts the North’s argument for the U.S. pullout that should be followed by the peace treaty, which causes the South and U.S. to be wary of any such a suggestion. The North and China regularly call on the U.S. for peace talks but have never clearly declared that the U.S. withdrawal won’t be a precondition for it.
Regarding Beijing’s strong-arm tactics on Seoul’s accommodation of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery against the North’s missile attacks, Zhu said that it is a small matter that has been taken out of proportion.
“It is not a big issue,” he said. “I think that Beijing handled it poorly, considering Seoul’s strategic importance.” But he said it has now turned into a matter of face as Seoul neither gave notice nor consulted with Beijing in making its announcement of the deployment, which took Beijing by surprise.
He also dispels the conventional belief about China’s hegemonic aspirations as myth.
“The U.S. is a superpower. China is not,” he said. “We don’t know when China will have power equal to the U.S. and we don’t have any intention to hasten that date and get engaged in a hegemonic war with the U.S.” As things are unfolding, his assertion doesn’t mean that China will accept U.S. leadership in its back and front yard such as the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula.
Zhu is an international relations expert keenly following Korean affairs and has an extensive network in Korea.
Asked whether his views on such issues as the North belong to the majority in China, he affirmed it might but cited his scholastic freedom for his frank expressions.
Footnote: I talked to Professor Zhu Feng about 20 minutes before his lecture that lasted two hours. My impressions evolved during those three hours. First, I asked myself “Can it be true?” and then “What if?” His observations about Chinese President Xi Jinping detesting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are hardly surprising, but I wondered whether it could lead to a significant change of policy, since Xi’s dislike of Kim is known publicly _ perhaps China may put real pressure on the North to derail its nuclear program.
About Beijing having no hegemonic ambitions, my immediate response was “Really?”
Then I thought that we might be overly suspicious of China’s intentions when all it wants is to keep an eye on its neighboring areas. Maybe our China fear is based on our imagination fueled by the outside world’s portrayals of it as a new beast that can’t wait for its turn to dominate globally.
I am not convinced by Zhu’s claims that it will come down to China being a benevolent white knight that is patiently gaining qualifications to replace the U.S. Or I wouldn’t go to the extent of giving his claims the benefit of the doubt. It’s not his fault but history and current affairs have provided enough grounds for our China fear that one lecture couldn’t dispel them. But the convincing part of Zhu’s lecture and interview came when he talked about China’s “indecision,” meaning that the Chinese and their leaders are not so clear-minded about the future path of their country. This national indecision explains why Beijing’s concern about the North is not just about a major refugee crisis as the outside world thinks, but even though there are more other urgent issues at stake, it gets frozen. And China’s projection of power in the South China Sea may not be a step to push the U.S. from the region and have Asia to itself. Rather, China is in the middle of trying to come to its own conclusions. That gives the rest of the world a window of opportunity to influence China and help it turn into a responsible leader rather than become a feral beast.
Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times’ chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.