Author: Gordon G. Chang
Publication: Forbes.com
Date: May 25 2009
URL: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/25/kim-jong-il-nuclear-china-obama-hu-jintao-opinions-columnists-north-korea.html
If it weren't for Beijing, Pyongyang would
be impotent.
Hours after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea detonated its second
atomic device, Beijing condemned the test. "The DPRK conducted another
nuclear test in disregard of the common opposition of the international community,"
a Foreign Ministry statement, issued May 25, noted. "The Chinese government
is firmly opposed to this act."
Is that so? Today, China supplies about 90%
of North Korea's oil, 80% of its consumer goods and 45% of its food. Beijing
is Pyongyang's only formal military ally and its primary backer in the United
Nations Security Council and other diplomatic forums. If it weren't for the
Chinese, there would be no North Korean missile program, no North Korean nuclear
program and no North Korea.
Kim Jong Il, Pyongyang's coldly rational leader,
knows he could not survive the loss of China's material and diplomatic support.
If Chairman Kim doesn't appear to listen to his sponsors in Beijing in every
instance, it's largely because they don't expect obedience each and every
time. The Chinese pursue their plan of supporting the North because they know
they have influence and can use it at any moment. Kim detonated a nuclear
weapon in the last few hours because he knew the Chinese did not object to
him doing so. He would not dare cross Beijing on a matter of such critical
importance.
For the last eight years, the United States
has had a Korea policy that can be described in one word: China. President
Bush looked to Beijing to contain Pyongyang and disarm Kim. Yet during his
administration the Chinese gave the North Korean leader the one thing he needed
most to develop nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them: time. The
Chinese counseled patience while the so-called six-party talks, which began
in 2003, dragged on, but they failed to broker a solution even though they
could have done so.
Many Chinese officials, especially in the
Foreign Ministry, know their country's Korea policy is counterproductive in
the long run because it will eventually lead to the nuclearization of the
region and thereby the marginalization of Beijing's relative power. Yet there
is no consensus in the upper echelons of the Communist Party and the People's
Liberation Army to change long-held policies. Apparently, President Hu Jintao
finds Kim useful in the short-term for keeping Japan and South Korea off-balance
and in extracting concessions from the United States.
Today, President Obama said North Korea's
acts "pose a grave threat to the peace and stability of the world."
So what should his administration do? From all accounts, his senior Asia officials
feel the United States has no leverage on Beijing. That assessment could not
be more wrong. The legitimacy of the Chinese political system rests largely
on the continual delivery of prosperity, and that prosperity depends on access
to the American market.
In 2008, all but $29.2 billion of China's
overall trade surplus of $295.5 billion related to sales to the United States.
In 2007, all but $5.9 billion of the overall surplus of $262.2 billion was
attributable to sales to America. The United States relies on Beijing to buy
American debt, but the Chinese export machine cannot function if China does
not buy our obligations. If Beijing does not do so, it will further constrain
the American economy. If Beijing further constrains the American economy,
Americans will be able to buy even fewer Chinese goods than they are at the
moment. If Americans buy fewer Chinese goods, the Chinese economy will fall
even faster than it is doing so now. And if the Chinese economy declines any
faster, the country's political system will face increased tensions and difficulties.
So the White House has leverage, especially
because the balance of power in Asia has shifted decisively toward the United
States. In the past, Beijing could stand behind Pyongyang because Tokyo and
the so-called "progressive" governments in Seoul--first under Kim
Dae-jung and then Roh Moo-hyun--were doing the same. In short, the Japanese
and South Koreans, Washington's two principal allies in the region, were giving
the Chinese cover to continue with their long-time program of supporting the
North.
Yet China's cover did not last. First Japan
under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and then South Korea under President Lee Myung-bak
got out of the business of propping up Chairman Kim Jong Il. That has left
Beijing alone in its support of the abhorrent regime in Pyongyang. In the
past, the Chinese have defied Washington when they had company but were almost
always cooperative when they did not.
Unfortunately, the Bush White House did not
take advantage of changing circumstances in Asia and was unwilling to make
China choose between its future--cooperation with the United States and the
international community--and its past--relations with Kim's Korea. Today,
the Obama administration is making the same fundamental mistake.
President Obama will never have a successful
Korea policy until he has a successful Chinese one. North Korea can continue
to defy the international community as long as it has Beijing's support. So
we don't have a North Korea problem. We have a China one.
- Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China.
