A problem for China to solve
 
Philip Bowring International Herald Tribune
Thursday, July 11, 2002
North Korea
 
HONG KONG For the United States, the North Korean regime makes a credible member of George W. Bush's pantheon of evil. For South Korea, the North is a source of endless frustration and occasional danger. For Japan, Pyongyang's missiles are crude reminders of the holes in its self-defense capability.
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But North Korea is now a bigger a problem for its last remaining friend, China, than for its foes. Irritation with Pyongyang is not yet official, but in private, and in the popular mind, there is contempt along with occasional flashes of anger at its stubborn refusal to learn from China and change its ways.
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What can China do about this prickly and recalcitrant regime which combines an extreme version of Korean nationalism with a Communist elite's ruthless commitment to its own survival? Recent incidents have underlined how much of a liability Pyonyang has become. North Korean asylum seekers in Beijing have repeatedly embarrassed China, and despite the huge increase in security around embassies in Beijing such events are certain to recur. China has cracked down on South Korean and foreign church groups encouraging asylum-seeking through China, but the pressure will not go away.
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China has also been forced to tighten security along the border with the North, but knows that it cannot be sealed. Indeed, the porous border is to the advantage of the North, which is content to export its problems of feeding and clothing its population.
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China conspicuously failed to take sides over the recent North-South naval clash. It saw this for what it was - a diversion from the South's moment of triumph in hosting and reaching the semifinal of the World Cup. This incident was never going to lead to a wider war, but it reminded China of the potential vulnerability of its Beijing Olympics to events on the nearby peninsula.
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More immediately, the clash offered a new threat to the South's "sunshine" policy, which Beijing has been at pains to encourage. It could lead to victory for the conservative Grand National Party in the presidential election in December and a shift by Seoul toward the United States, with which relations have been uncomfortable since Bush came to office.
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Beijing is also concerned that lack of reform in the North could eventually lead to the collapse of the regime and a German-style instant reunification, whether the South wants it or not. China is wary of Korean reunification, especially at a time when U.S. troops are still in the South. Even if U.S. troops were then withdrawn and Korea came more within China's sphere of influence than that of America or Japan, China would have worries about the integrity of its own frontiers, given the number of ethnic Koreans, with their fierce sense of identity, on its side of the border.
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China has continued to support the North with food, fuel and fertilizer to help keep the regime afloat and avoid any sudden and disruptive change. It has used its relationship with Pyongyang very effectively on the diplomatic front, wringing concessions from Washington on other issues in return for help, real or imagined, in pressing the North on nuclear and missile questions.
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But China has had scant success in persuading the North to change its domestic policies. Beijing has access to the leadership - which is more than anyone else has - but little influence. Last year Kim Jong Il visited China's showcases of economic reform, Shenzhen and Shanghai. He was surely impressed. But for survivalists like Kim, real change is dangerous.
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So is there anything China can do? Should it take some risks and threaten withdrawal of economic support if there is not economic reform and a serious response to the South's sunshine policy? Are there factions within army and party in the North which it can back in an effort to spur change? Or is domestic politics in the North too obscure, or nationalism so strong that any Chinese attempts to meddle would backfire?
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For now China is preoccupied with its own party congress and new leadership. There is policy inertia in China itself. Many in the party and the army would regard any attempt to force change or cut the North Koreans adrift as strategically dangerous. For them the present situation is uncomfortable, but tolerably so.
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However, even conservatives recognize that China's support for its bizarre Communist friend and neighbor fits ill with the expansion of China's influence in a prospering, trade-oriented East Asia. The rest of us should stop worrying about Pyongyang. Its weaponry is as overblown as its rhetoric. North Korea is a nettle that China has to grasp.
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International Herald Tribune
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