More fun from North Korea

The latest issue of China Security (a journal "dedicated to providing a Chinese perspective on issues that will shape [the US-China] bilateral relations in the decades ahead") has three articles by Chinese academics on North Korea's decision to develop nuclear weapons. Chinese academics, of course, operate under a very different environment than their U.S. counterparts. Whereas U.S. academics have tenure and can say whatever absurd things come into their minds, Chinese professors can easily find themselves in prison for saying even the most benign things, if it displeases the Chinese government. Accordingly, what these academics have to say about Chinese-North Korean relations represents more than just your typical professorial musings. The articles likely were cleared by Communist Party officials and, consequently, may signal official government thinking.

The first essay, Coping with a Nuclear North Korea, by Liangui Zhang, a professor of international strategic research at the Party School of the China Communist Party Central Committee, summarizes the issue for China:

On Oct. 9, 2006, North Korea brazenly carried out a nuclear test in defiance of the international community. The test reveals that long ago the DPRK’s leaders made a decision to develop and possess nuclear weapons. Having crossed the nuclear threshold, it is unlikely that Pyongyang will give up its possession of such weapons.

North Korea’s action was undoubtedly a challenge to the international community’s staunch opposition to nuclear proliferation. It has furthermore seriously damaged peace and stability in Northeast Asia. If North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is analyzed from the perspective of the North Korean nuclear crisis as a process still underway as well as the result of North Korea already a nuclear nation, we find that the degree of cost and benefit differs for each of the relevant parties. Regardless, however, China is the biggest loser.

Zhang believes that it is clear that North Korea long ago decided to develop nuclear weapons, and that previous agreements to the contrary (such as the Clinton Administration's agreement to provide assistance to North Korea in exchange for their abandonment of a nuclear development program) were merely delaying tactics. From a US perspective, this is interesting, because it means that, Democratic criticisms of the Bush Administration's policies towards North Korea notwithstanding, North Korea was hellbent on these weapons from the beginning, for both international and domestic reasons:

...nuclear weapons also serve to restore the strategic balance – even if only psychological – with South Korea. Since 1948, when the North and South states were founded, there has existed an acute struggle over inheritance of the Korean Peninsula. The balance of comprehensive national strength began to tip in the early 1970s, and widened dramatically with the South’s economic power growing 30 times greater than the North. Frustrating the North is the fact that there is no conceivable reversal for the near future. North Korean leaders see mastering nuclear weapons as the only possible measure to dispel the fear of failure in this competition and, even possibly to take the initiative in unifying the Korean Peninsula through force.

...

With a stagnant economy and worsening poverty of its people, successful tests provide them with an explanation since nuclear weapons are regarded as a symbol of national strength and scientific and technological prowess. This can be seen in slogans like “military-first politics” and “construct a powerful country.” The nuclear program helps to stabilize society, eliminate feelings of failure and enhance the legitimacy of the system.

The other interesting point of Zhang's article is how much this situation sucks from the Chinese perspective. Partly, this is because the big winner is Japan:

Under the pretext of guarding against North Korean missiles, Japan has sharply increased its military spending, set up the missile defense system in cooperation with the United States, launched several reconnaissance satellites, expanded the maritime combat force, drawn up a strategy for a preemptive strike and strengthened the Japanese-American alliance, thereby accomplishing a long held wish. Furthermore, according to Japanese media coverage dated May 22, 2005, a report from the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee claimed that if China continued its ambiguous policies on the North Korean nuclear issue then the United States would encourage Japan to become nuclearized and turn “Japanese nuclear weapons” against “North Korean nuclear weapons.” It would also organize an “alliance system” that included Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, Japan and other Southeast Asian countries and regions. In this way, Japan would in one stroke become a nuclear power and a central force in a new East Asian military alliance.

By contrast, the US a nuclearized North Korea is a mixed bag. The North Korean threat allows the US to strengthen its military alliances throughout Asia, and in a way that makes it difficult for China to protest. The US will also have an easier time keeping South Korea and Japan allied. On the down side, nuclear proliferation to other states may snowball, and there is always the risk that North Korea will sell or give a nuclear weapon to terrorists.

For China, however:

...the losses for China far outweigh any gains. Since China is in strategic competition with the United States and Japan, their gains, as set out above, are China’s losses. To make matters worse, some of their losses are also losses for China. This latter category would include nuclear proliferation and the consequent instability in East Asia.

Zhang also points out that the "lesson of Vietnam should not be forgotten." For Chinese, of course, the "lesson of Vietnam" is very different than it is for Americans. (China supplied North Vietnam with weapons during the US war there, only to see many of those weapons turned against it when China and Vietnam went to war in 1979.) In other words, North Korean nuclear weapons may be pointed at Japan and South Korea today, but that doesn't mean they won't be pointed in China's direction tomorrow.

By contrast, in North Korea's Strategic Significance to China, Professor Dingli Shen of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, argues that, for China, North Korea is inextricably linked to the Taiwan issue. In particular, Shen argues that so long as North Korea focuses the attention of the United States, the US will not have the military resources or will to protect Taiwan against China. Although this is a very different view from the one Zhang takes, the conclusion is the same: any bilateral US-North Korea arrangement is problematic, because it will necessarily come at the expense of China's interest. A second bad outcome would be a war between the United States and North Korea -- primarily because North Korea would lose and then China would face a united Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese front led by the US.

A third view, Shifting Tides: China and North Korea by Feng Zhu, professor of the School of International Studies and director of the International Security Program at Peking University, argues that public perceptions of North Korea in China are changing, and these changes will have an effect on China's future policies. According to Zhu, North Korea's actions, first by testing long-range missiles and then by developing nuclear weapons, have had negative implications for China's security and were carried out despite strenuous Chinese objections. In this sense, North Korea has demonstrated it does not care what China, its one and only benefactor, thinks. Chinese leaders now wonder whether they have been backing the wrong horse and that perhaps closer relations with South Korea is in China's long-term economic and security best interests (particularly given South Korean antipathy towards Japan and occasional resentment of the United States).

Of these arguments, Zhang's and Zhu's seems most rational, but it is unclear whether this is a debate among individuals or a debate within the Chinese hierarchy. Shen believes that a nuclearized Japan would alienate the United States. Under the current situation, this seems unlikely. At the same time, Shen's view that North Korea is a deterrent to US activity in the region (because the US must maintain troops on the Korean peninsula) seems stretched. US troops remain in Korea not because of North Korea, but because of South Korea, Japan and, significantly, China. (The view in the US is that without at least the appearance of a US commitment, Japan would go nuclear and South Korea and China would have heart attacks.) Of course, it seems quite possible that all of these views are held.