China to take harder line on old friend North Korea
Mon Oct 9, 2006 5:54am ET
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BEIJING (Reuters) – North Korea’s nuclear test has laid bare the failure of China’s policy of engaging its unruly neighbor and will force Beijing into a watershed shift toward a harder line, analysts said.
The test, which the North said it had carried out on Monday morning, delivered a sharp blow to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s doctrine of using economic incentives and diplomatic coaxing to avert North Korea’s drive to become a nuclear weapons state.
Just what shape China’s future policy toward the North will take remains unclear. Chinese analysts said Beijing, the closest thing Pyongyang has to an ally, was likely to go along with international sanctions although it would stop short of backing military action for fear of sparking regional instability.
“The test signified the failure of China’s traditional North Korea policy,” said Zhu Feng, professor of international relations at Peking University. “Now it has failed and China faces the challenge to find policy alternatives.”
China’s official reaction was strikingly swift and blunt. It denounced the test as “brazen” and demanded Pyongyang do nothing to worsen the situation and return to the negotiating table.
Coupled with Hu’s joint denunciation of a possible test as “unacceptable”, speaking alongside visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday night, it suggested the revision of policy was already under way before the test.
SIGNS OF SLIPPING
While some analysts had said China’s increased trade with North Korea could buttress cooperation, recent trade figures show growth in Chinese exports to its Communist neighbor has slowed while imports from the North shrank 13.8 percent in the first eight months of 2006 compared to a year ago.
Chinese analysts, many of whom advise the government on foreign policy, were remarkably frank, openly declaring the test had scuttled the six-party dialogue on the North Korean crisis between China, the Koreas, Russia, the United States and Japan.
Beijing, as supplier of 70 percent of the North’s food and fuel aid, would now have to consider backing U.N. Security Council sanctions and perhaps even enforce its own.
“China should adjust its policies, including reconsidering aid. At the Security Council, China will certainly have to consider backing sanctions,” said Zhang Liangui, an expert on North Korea at the Central Party School, a top think-tank in Beijing. “We’ll have to rethink our relations to better reflect our interests.”
Some analysts said Beijing might first back symbolic sanctions, reaching for North Korea’s food and energy lifelines if Pyongyang continues confrontation.
For years China has opposed sanctions for fear that the collapse of the North Korean regime would lead to an influx of refugees and instability on its northeastern flank. Pyongyang has said sanctions would be tantamount to war.
Throughout the latest five-year crisis over the North’s nuclear ambitions, the United States urged China to do more to pressure Pyongyang. With the nuclear test, Washington may now get what it wanted.
Sanctions appear more palatable to Beijing now that China faces the prospect of a nuclear-capable North Korea and the possibility of an arms race in Asia that could bring Tokyo and Seoul into the nuclear club alongside Beijing.
“China is facing a dilemma. If it insists on the denuclearization of the peninsula, it will have to try to disarm North Korea, but that is unacceptable to Pyongyang, ” said Yan Xuetong, professor of international relations at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.
“If it just accepts North Korea as a nuclear power, Japan and South Korea might seize the opportunity to go nuclear. It would be a bigger problem that escalates the security flashpoint in Northeast Asia,” Yan said.
How much leverage Beijing still has remains to be seen. During one break in six-party talks, it cut off an oil pipeline to the North, citing maintenance. Pyongyang returned to the table not long afterwards.
China already appeared to have lost some of its standing with the North by going along with a U.N. resolution condemning missile tests carried out by Pyongyang in July.
“If China agrees to all the sanctions proposed by the U.S. or Japan, its sway over North Korea will become as weak as theirs,” said Yan
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