I found the remarks of the editors of the Wall Street Journal on the relationship between China and North Korea very interesting:
Is China greeting the Trump era by getting tough on North Korea? That may be the impression Beijing has tried to convey by announcing a suspension of coal imports from the nuclear-armed state. But there is less here than meets the eye.
As is often the case regarding Beijing’s ties to Pyongyang, the details of the coal cutoff are murky. In the most generous telling, China has decided to squeeze North Korea’s key source of hard currency to punish it for acting in destabilizing ways—testing missiles, assassinating overseas enemies with VX nerve agent and the like. By this logic, Beijing is signalling a desire to work with the new U.S. Administration on the shared goal of denuclearizing the Kim regime. North Korean state media have pushed this line, slamming China for “dancing to the tune of the U.S.â€
Yet Beijing has said that it had to cut off coal imports to comply with United Nations sanctions passed in November. According to the Foreign Ministry, Chinese imports in 2017 have already approached the U.N.’s annual value limit of $400 million. Beijing would hardly deserve applause for buying its full quota and then stopping to meet its legal obligations.
A year ago the Chinese also promised to comply with an earlier round of U.N. sanctions on North Korean mineral exports. But Beijing made sure those sanctions included a loophole exempting transactions for undefined “livelihood purposes.†It then proceeded to rack up record purchases of North Korean coal.
After November’s sanctions moved to nullify the “livelihood†loophole with hard caps, Beijing promised a cutoff—yet still imported more North Korean coal in December than in any previous month of the year. Its total coal imports for 2016, a year in which it twice voted for sanctions on such purchases, rose 14.5% from 2015 and totaled more than $1 billion.
Pyongyang can fund a lot of missile tests with that money. Then there is the unspecified sum China will soon begin paying for 4,000 metric tons of North Korean liquefied petroleum gas, an arrangement quietly announced this month and spotted by Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Beijing sustains Pyongyang in countless other ways, including access to Chinese oil, banks, trading firms, ports and front companies. Contrast this with China’s unofficial economic sanctions on South Korea merely for wishing to defend itself against North Korean nuclear missiles by installing advanced U.S.-made antimissile defenses.
I don’t think that it can be maintained any longer that China’s sole interest in North Korea is in preventing a catastrophic collapse of the regime with an attendant flood of refugees into China. For one thing many of those refugees are probably more likely to flood into South Korea where they might well advance one of China’s foreign policy goals—making a wedge between South Korea and the United States.
I can’t explain why China is supporting North Korea’s nuclear weapons development. They could stop it any time they cared to without causing the collapse of the regime just by preventing the transfer of materials the North needs for its weapons development into the country.
I still believe, however, that the relationship between China and North Korea still requires cost-benefit analysis on the part of the Chinese. In that light our preferred policy should be to make China’s continued support of the Kim regime costlier and more embarrassing. Simple risk mitigation practically requires it.
I don’t believe Russia among more than a few others finds China’s continued support of NK “embarrassing.” The others perhaps being the countries whose governments have been overthrown after surrendering weapons, or perhaps are on that list or to at least be severely destabilized by the U.S.
But do you believe the get tough with China such as in the South China Sea area plays a role in making China’s mentioned support of NK less costly?
Not entirely unrelated, the WSJ yesterday I believe but definitely very recently ran an editorial which said the US government should assiduously enact or continue a foreign policy which prevented any other power in the world from even attempting to exert regional dominance.
There you have it.
I don’t see much changing. As described, China wants to give the appearance of doing something without actually doing much. They continue to kick that can down the road.
” In that light our preferred policy should be to make China’s continued support of the Kim regime costlier and more embarrassing.”
We can’t. The truth is that it was really the Chinese who colluded with Trump to get him elected, and he owes them. Just wait until the Russian thing runs its course. You’ll see; Schumer, Pelosi and the New York Times have sources and documents……………….even if unnamed and unproduced.
If the North Korean regime collapsed; the Chinese probably agree that in the long term, most North Koreans would end up in South Korea. In the short term, they would flood into China as the running assumption is that a North Korea collapse triggers a military conflict with South Korea/US and refugees would run away from the fighting. In the short term after any collapse, South Korea is unlikely to permit unfettered migration for North Koreans; the economic difference between the two Koreas is far larger then the two Germanys at reunification.
Also, the CCP has a different view on social stability then American society. It sees the popular discontent that unorderly refugees flows can bring into Western society – and between risking Communist party rule vs doing a humanitarian thing, there is no contest.
I agree refugees is not China’s only interest. Any collapse of North Korea would likely result in a unified Korea with American troops at the China border. The Chinese have gone to war multiple times in Korea to prevent a hostile power having power over all of Korea, so tolerating North Korea may not be too bad. And unfortunately, the Chinese will not trust American promises that American troops will stay out of North Korea after any conflict; not after what happened in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Third, the Chinese can see how crazy the Kim family is, so they do have to calculate the risk if they trigger a collapse and Kim decides to go out in a blaze of glory by using his nukes. Beijing is closer to Pyongyang then Ottawa is to Washington.
Americans should push the Chinese harder (especially on technology transfer/acquisition), but there is a limit to what the Chinese are willing to do. Meanwhile, there is also the question of effectiveness. The present Kim’s father was willing to starve a quarter of the country in the 90’s to maintain power and develop nuclear weapons.
In the end, I think its about whether present Kim feels secure enough that he will stop and negotiate. I thought he was from statements he made last year, but killing his brother with the intrigue worthy of a Korean drama tells me he does not feel secure at all.
By the way, Kim’s brother was under Chinese protection when he was killed — it tells you the trust both parties have towards each other.
Another example of the Chinese authorities’ vulnerability to embarrassment over the Kim administration. Not only is their client ignoring their wishes, it’s killing people under their protection. Pretty lousy client.
I agree with that but I also think that we can safely raise the ante to the point where the Chinese authorities’ calculus changes by personalizing the matter.
That’s a very interesting subject on its own. I don’t have my ear to the ground about South Korea but I haven’t been hearing as much discussion of reunification lately as I did a decade ago. I suspect that with the passage of time the present generation just doesn’t have the ties to people in the North that their parents did.
The Koreans (both North and South) are quite nationalistic, and I have not seen any process of “self identity” change that occurred / occurring in Taiwan. So a merger if North Korea collapses now or in the near future is likely, but a realistic view says such a collapse is a long ways away.
Why not concede the US government has been out of control in a long term self-defeating way at least since 2002?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/06/chinas-fear-us-prevents-defusing-north-korean-threat/
NK’s latest missile test is an epitome of the PRC’s problem with NK. Three of the missiles landed in Japanese waters, underscoring Japan’s legitimate concerns. How could Japan be faulted for building up its defense forces?
And that’s directly opposed to the PRC’s interests in the region.