Will China exert influence on NK over uranium program?

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The role of China took center stage Tuesday after North Korea sent an unequivocal signal of the decades-old brinkmanship diplomacy by unveiling an enriched uranium program last week.

South Korean and U.S. officials hurriedly headed to China this week to press China to play a constructive role in stopping the fresh North Korea-born threat.

The Hermit Kingdom’s enriched uranium program puts at risk its long-standing benefactor as well as the entire Northeast Asia region.

Some officials here expressed hopes that this shared sense of threat will court China to play a role in convincing the North to halt the nuclear program.

Analysts, however, were skeptical about the prospects for the diplomatic effort to bear fruit.

They predicted that South Korea and the U.S. will face an uphill battle in pressing China to exert its influence over the North.

China’s role

Bonnie S. Glaser, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that China could potentially play a very important role with regard to North Korea’s nuclear program.

“They can tell North Korea that its continued efforts to expand its nuclear program are detrimental to Chinese interests and to peace and stability in Northeast Asia,” Glaser told The Korea Times. “They could warn that refusing to halt them will have a negative impact on North Korea’s relationship with China. They could delay the delivery of oil and other assistance.”

Despite this, the China watcher was skeptical on China’s role.

“Are they likely to do these things? Not in my opinion.”

She made the remarks hours after South Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-lac left Seoul Monday for Beijing to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei.

Wi had talks with Wu for two hours shortly after arriving in China’s capital and their conversation extended to dinner that evening.

During the meeting, the South Korean negotiator was quoted as delivering the deepest concern over the North’s nuke program.

Before returning to Seoul Tuesday, Wi also sat down with U.S. ambassador to China Jon M. Huntsman to discuss ways to resolve the North’s nuclear program.

Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, flew to China Tuesday to sit down with Chinese officials after a series of meetings with South Korean and Japanese officials.

The back-to-back meetings with the Chinese officials by South Korean and U.S. officials came in the wake of Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker’s announcement that the North’s centrifuge facility appeared to be largely suited to enrich uranium for energy use.

But the scientist said he believed that the facility could be readily converted to produce highly enriched uranium for warheads.

Over the past decades, analysts said the North has shown a consistent pattern in its tactic to gain what it wanted by producing threats.

It raises the stakes with provocation, using it as a bargaining chip at the negotiating table and then receiving economic assistance.

Some experts speculated that the North’s playing the threat card, instead of actually using it, at the negotiating table appears to make the governments feel that the North’s enriched uranium program was not a crisis.

Setback

The fresh threat worried South Korea and its allies and the partners of the six-party talks, including China.

China, which recently replaced Japan as the world’s second largest economy, prioritized the stability of the Korean Peninsula in its policy toward North Korea.

The North Korean nuclear program poses a serious threat to China as the two nations shared the border.

In an interview with The Korea Times earlier, Professor Kenneth Quinones, dean of research evaluation of Japan’s Akita International University, remarked on a change in China’s policy toward North Korea after it supported the U.N. Security Council sanctions in the wake of the North’s second nuclear test in May 2009.

“China’s approval of U.N. sanctions last year caused an intense debate within the Chinese government whether to use pressure or to try to induce North Korea’s cooperation,” he said.

Quinones said the foreign ministry preferred using international pressure but the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army preferred using inducement.

“The party and the army won the debate so after the U.N. sanctions that were approved in June, China moderated its policy toward Pyongyang.”

Despite the shared belief that North Korea’s belligerent acts posed a common threat, China was reluctant to join the international effort to punish the North after the latter committed provocation, such as the sinking of the warship Cheonan.

The crisis group experts said Beijing’s interpretation of North Korea’s nuclear program was behind its continued backing of the North.

“According to Beijing’s calculations, if North Korea’s nuclear ambitions were not negotiable, pressure would likely provoke Pyongyang to take more dangerous steps, jeopardizing China’s more fundamental interest in regional peace and stability,” the report said.

Given China’s previous record, some analysts were skeptical about the prospects for China to play an active role in the North’s enriched uranium program.