NK Collapse May Trigger US-China Clash
By Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporter
If North Korea collapses, possible intervention by South Korea and the United States would be the biggest fear for China, according to a U.S. military expert.
China, one of the North's closest allies, has been preparing itself to counteract, said Larry M. Wurtzel.
In a report, titled ``Beyond the Strait: PLA Missions Other Than Taiwan,'' published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, he said that South Korean and U.S. intervention is ``certain.''
Therefore, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been prepared to move supplies and forces into North Korea to restore order and to secure the Sino-North Korean border, he said.
Wurtzel quoted a senior Chinese official as saying, ``If the leaders in the United States think the U.S. military or its ally, South Korea, can simply march north in the event of a collapse in North Korea without some consultation with China, it will look like 1950 all over again.''
China's intervention was formally justified via a bilateral treaty with North Korea that stated China would play a role in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
Wurtzel also mentioned that as early as 1995, Chinese army officers knowledgeable of North Korea opined that Pyongyang had four to five nuclear weapons.
He noted China's initial view on the nuclear weapons in the mid-1990s was as a ``deterrent,'' but changed this in 2006 to ``safeguarding China's side door.''
He confirmed Beijing's fundamental objective in policy toward North Korea as maintaining stability and peace on the peninsula, opposed to the U.S. objective that is regime change.
``Even in closed forums, there is almost a taboo on discussing regime change in North Korea,'' he wrote.
He added when Americans use the term ``regime change,'' it ``had connotations of an armed attack on Pyongyang,'' quoting an unnamed Chinese scholar.
The scholar advised against such an action as well as using that term to describe approaches to North Korea, Wurtzel said.
As to the Dokdo islets in the East Sea, he said the Chinese foreign ministry supports the position held by both North and South Korea that they belong to Korea. Japan has claimed South Korea's sovereign Dokdo islets as its territory.