On Monday, the Chinese government confirmed that President Hu Jintao had met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il last Friday in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun. The official Xinhua news agency reported that Mr. Hu had told Mr. Kim that “the Chinese respect and support the active measures [North Korea] has taken to maintain stability, develop its economy and improve the livelihood of its people.”
The same day that statement was released, the United States announced new sanctions against North Korea aimed at cutting off sources of income that finance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Washington said it was freezing the assets of four North Korean citizens, three companies and five government agencies suspected of drug trafficking, money laundering and currency counterfeiting.
While Beijing’s references to North Korean stability and economic development may be the stuff of fantasy, the fact is that Washington’s latest sanctions indicate how impotent it is in responding to North Korea and its challenge to regional security.
Despite China’s public words about North Korea’s measures to “improve the livelihood of its people,” the truth is that most North Koreans don’t get enough to eat because of severely inadequate grain production. The nation has been highly reliant on food from China and United Nations agencies for almost 20 years, since North Korea’s economy began a rapid downward spiral. Most worrying is the impact of pervasive malnutrition and stunted growth on children there.
As for stability or economic development, the recent execution by firing squad of a former top negotiator with South Korea and two senior economic officials doesn’t bode well.
Regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapon programs, the Chinese press release, perhaps optimistically, indicated that Kim Jong-il said he “hopes to maintain close communication and co-ordination with China to promote an early resumption of the six-party talks and ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”
But it seems Washington realizes the ineffective six-party talks are a charade by Beijing to manipulate U.S. compliance in maintaining the dismal North Korean regime. Since these talks produced no net progress after five rounds since 2003, it’s hard to imagine they’re anything more than a tactic by China and North Korea to stave off outside challenges to their status quo. As an editorial in the state-run Global Times, published while Mr. Kim was in China, makes plain, “Maintaining and stabilizing the current relationship between China and North Korea is of maximum benefit to China.”
When it comes to addressing the threat posed by North Korea, the bottom line is that positive change will only come when more forward-looking and less conservative elements of China’s leadership prevail over the cautious “do nothing” thinking that dominates current Chinese-Korean policy. But there are signs that China could become more pro-active in resolving the Korea crisis.
Kim Jong-il is in poor health and wants to see his 28-year-old son installed as his successor at a party congress in a few weeks. But the young man – referred to in the North Korean press as Beloved Comrade Kim Jong-un – has no military or party credentials. Becoming supreme leader is evidently to be his first real job. “This kid may have his finger on the button before we know it,” said one U.S. diplomat. The sinking of a South Korean warship in March could well be the consequence of Beloved Comrade’s trying out his newly acquired authority.
Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader, is regarded as a pale reflection of his father, Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader. In fact, it has been widely reported that China’s leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, was appalled when Kim Il-sung told him that Kim Jong-il would be his successor.
In the case of Kim Jong-un, then, the Chinese response must have been even more disparaging. It also will be a very hard sell in North Korea. Indeed, when Kim Jong-un went with his ailing father to meet China’s President, his name was left off the list of Korean officials reported in the Dear Leader’s entourage by the Chinese media.
Beijing would do well to take action to stop this Kim family dynastic succession in the interests of North Korea’s political stability.
Even though South Korea, with a per capita income 37 times that of its northern neighbour, recently proposed a “unification tax” to cover the anticipated cost of eventual reunification, the key player in resolving the Korean crisis has to be China.
The Korean nation has been separated for 65 years already, and only China has the ability to inspire a military coup in Pyongyang and install a pro-China regime that will implement a Chinese-style program of “opening and economic reform.” Only China has the resources to make the high levels of investment necessary to reconstruct North Korea’s economic infrastructure.
Beijing’s current economic and political support of Pyongyang is a drain on China and counter to its aspiration to be a respected great power. But a stable North Korea, with a market economic system, would be of great benefit to China, and would likely, eventually, lead to a China-oriented reunified Korea. While this places doubt over the future role of the United States in Korea, Taiwan and Japan, it could be the way to a prosperous and stable East Asia.
Charles Burton is an associate professor of political science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.
