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North Korea becomes China's bete noire
By Marc Erikson
As little as a year ago, few if any of China's top policymakers gave more than a passing thought to North Korea. Today, few if any of them would disagree that this onetime ally has become China's No 1 headache and puts several of its essential strategic interests at risk - no matter what the outcome of the present standoff over North Korea's nuclear programs. Here are some of the reasons.
In a worst-case scenario, full-scale war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula. China could and probably would stay out of it. But the collateral damage to Chinese interests would be massive. The United States, South Korea, and a peripherally involved Japan lending logistic support would win such a war, at the expense of possibly hundreds of thousands of casualties. Regime change in Pyongyang and Korean unification, unplanned and under chaotic circumstances, would be inevitable - to the long-term detriment of China's regional strategic and global economic interests. South Korean foreign investment, the bulk of which now flows to China, would be diverted to Korean reconstruction, as would substantial portions of other foreign investment now flowing to China. Instead of having two Korean quasi-allies, China would face a unified nation of uncertain allegiance. Japan almost inevitably would emerge as a major new regional military power. Unification of mainland China with Taiwan would likely be postponed for generations in the context of the newly emerging strategic constellation. The United States, now in the process of long-term thinning out of its military strategic presence in East Asia, would be re-ensconced there.
But even short of such a strategic nightmare, other outcomes are not exactly palatable for China. Even now, in response to the nuclear standoff since last October and North Korean missile tests, Japan has geared up its military posture. New laws defining the role of Japan's military in case of attack or clear and present danger of attack have been passed in parliament. The Defense Agency has requested US$1.2 billion in next year's budget for theater missile defense. The public mood in Japan, until not so long ago staunchly pacifist, is undergoing rapid change. A nuclear-armed Japan is no longer unthinkable. Take just one example: A couple of years back, Nisohachi Hyodo, author of a four-year plan for nuclear armament of Japan, was considered a nut case. But now he has his own program on a major Tokyo radio station and is frequently invited to speak on university campuses or to address civic associations. That not enough (to China's taste), Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told a parliamentary committee in March that in case of imminent missile launch by North Korea, preemption must be considered and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said there was nothing in Japan's pacifist constitution that prevented the country from possessing nuclear weapons.
Potent Japanese missile defense, China fears, could also bring Taiwan under a protective umbrella and nullify any Beijing military threat to the island. But even nuclear-weapons possession by North Korea is worry enough. China does not in the least welcome the prospect of a potentially nuclear-armed unified Korea in the future. Yet another concern is that even peaceful resolution of one kind or another of the current crisis is wrought with danger. If and when economic and personal contacts between South and North Korea increase rapidly as the result of peaceful settlement, it is entirely possible that - much as happened in the case of Germany - unification could come much faster than expected or planned for by anyone. Again, in the economic arena, China would be the initial loser as investment would be diverted to the newly unified nation.
It is fair to say that anything but maintenance of the status quo somehow is to China's detriment and utter dislike. The question Beijing must ask itself is how things got to this point and how China got maneuvered into a lose-lose position.
The answer, unpleasant as it may be to Beijing policymakers, is not that difficult to come by. During the previous North Korea crisis in 1993-94, temporarily resolved by then US president Bill Clinton and former president Jimmy Carter, China acted as no more than an interested bystander, largely sat on its hands, and quietly enjoyed US discomfort. It was not China's problem. Top Chinese military leaders like former defense minister Chi Haotian, a onetime military attache in the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang with excellent connections in the North Korean military, did nothing to help make the "Agreed Framework" of 1994 a success. Zhang Wantian, a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and chief political officer of the Jinan military region that borders North Korea, had equally good connections and did nothing. Kim Jong-il was considered a loose cannon, but "our loose cannon" rumbling on someone else's deck.
But, of course, as things turned out, reining in North Korea was precisely China's problem - and foreseeably so. Serious efforts by China at that time to dissuade North Korea from continuing its nuclear programs in violation of the Agreed Framework and diplomatic efforts in any way commensurate with the major and unprecedented ones China has been making since the beginning of this year could well have forestalled the present impasse.
That's hindsight and history now. But much as - in effect - it was in the mid-'90s, the ball is firmly in China's court if the current crisis is to be resolved. The difference between now and then is that China's clout with Pyongyang may well be substantially reduced.
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