By Sokeel J. Park
Kim Jong-il’s latest trip to China once again throws the spotlight on the Sino-North Korean relationship and Beijing’s policy toward Pyongyang.
As North Korea’s most important ally and trading partner, China is often criticized for protecting its naughty neighbor at the U.N. Security Council, for allowing them to violate international sanctions, for propping up the regime with trade and aid, and for denying the human rights of North Korean refugees by forcibly repatriating them.
But in explaining these policies, commentaries tend to focus on external concerns such as competition with the United States and fears that a North Korean collapse could lead to U.S. soldiers on their border; and even China’s “blood ties” with North Korea forged during the Korean War. Geopolitical considerations are undoubtedly a factor, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also has key domestic concerns that drive its North Korea policy.
The CCP’s number one priority of maintaining China’s own internal stability is crucial to understanding this policy. The CCP is legitimately concerned that major instability in North Korea could spill over the border into its northeastern “rust belt” regions that are home to significant ethnic Korean populations.
Conflict or chaos in North Korea would disrupt the burgeoning economic links that are of increasing importance to those regions’ economies, and trigger floods of North Korean refugees into the mix. Political change in North Korea could also stir up identity-based unrest among ethnic Korean populations.
The party believes that ethnic identity was a destabilizing factor leading to the breakup of the Soviet Union, and in this context the ethnic Koreans in Jilin and Liaoning can be added to the usual suspects in Tibet and Xinjiang. The lethal cocktail of economic disruption, pressure from refugee floods, and identity-based unrest could start a wave of social instability that might conceivably end up threatening the CCP’s rule.
We only have to look at the remarkable level of anxiety the party has shown at the Arab Spring to see their paranoia about the possible contagion of social instability. Memories of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square massacre make the current leadership very jumpy about sources of instability.
But the Arab Spring would be nothing compared to the potential effects of a revolution or major instability right on their northeastern border in their so called “communist brother nation.”
The concern that instability in North Korea could, in the worst case scenario lead to serious instability in China itself is sufficient cause for the CCP to see it as necessary to prop up the regime in Pyongyang and give their blessing to another embarrassing dynastic succession. This thinking is confounded by external factors such as Chinese military concerns that North Korean instability could lead to conflict in their backyard and a loss of their buffer state, meaning further encirclement by U.S. allies.
Even if North Korea's provocations and nuclear program hurt Chinese interests, and batting for North Korea at the Security Council causes diplomatic costs, maintaining stability remains their number one concern. Of course, Beijing would rather see a gradual reform of Pyongyang’s economy that would enable long-term stability and create more economic opportunities for Chinese businesses, hence its leaders eagerness to show Kim Jong-il around their factories when he visits.
But if Kim once again fails to implement such reforms, and instead stages a third nuclear test, China can once again be counted on to prevent international pressure from reaching a level that could actually threaten the North Korean government. China is willing to pay all the economic and political costs of maintaining the regime in Pyongyang, because it fears the cost of North Korea’s collapse may be much higher.
This reality raises serious questions for South Korea and the United States. It means that any efforts to solve “the North Korea problem” by sanctioning and strangling the regime in Pyongyang will be consistently undermined by an increasingly capable and confident China.
Sokeel J. Park produces the NK News Brief and works for an NGO focusing on North Korean issues. He holds a master’s degree in theory and history of international relations from the London School of Economics and has previously worked for the South Korean government, the United Nations, and a diplomatic consultancy in New York. He can be reached at nknewsbrief@gmail.com.