Korea: Living in the Dragon's Shadow
By Don Oberdorfer

Throughout their shared history of thousands of years, the relationship with China has been among the most crucial external factors in the life of the Korean people—and the fate of their governments. Today they may be in the midst of important changes that once again could affect developments on the Korean Peninsula and beyond.

Although much influenced by their giant neighbor, the Koreans have always been a distinct people with their own language and traditions. After early clashes from before the time of Christ, Korea in the 7th century A.D. embraced Chinese culture, paid tribute to the Chinese emperor and received recognition and a degree of protection in return.

A year after rising to power in 1949, Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China intervened massively to save the fraternal North Korean regime of Kim Il Sung from extinction at the hands of General Douglas MacArthur and his South Korean allies in the 1950–53 Korean War. China suffered close to 900,000 troops killed or wounded, including the death of Mao’s own son. In the aftermath, China remained unremittingly hostile to capitalist South Korea while declaring that its ties with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the official name of the communist North, were as close as “lips and teeth.”

Complex Relationship
When I flew into Pyongyang on a Chinese airliner on my first trip to the North in mid-June 1991, I was an eyewitness to one of the many complexities of the relationship. As the aircraft taxied to a stop, I was astonished to hear a military band playing martial music under a huge portrait of Kim Il Sung and to see hundreds of people on the tarmac waving pink plastic boughs in welcome. I quickly learned that the demonstration was not for me but for Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, who had remained out of sight behind a curtain in the plane’s first-class section during the one hour, 20-minute flight from Beijing. As far as I could determine, the sole purpose of Qian’s visit was to reassure his hosts of China’s continuing esteem. Three weeks earlier Premier Li Peng had brought the unwelcome news that China would no longer veto the admission of South Korea to the United Nations. As a result, North Korea had been forced to announce it had “no choice” but to join the United Nations along with its southern rival, something it had fiercely opposed in the past.

Three months after visiting Pyongyang, Qian took advantage of South Korea’s new status as a U.N. member to meet South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Sang Ok in a conference room at U.N. headquarters. The following year, in August 1992, he and Lee established full diplomatic relations between Beijing and Seoul. Once again, Qian took the bad news to Pyongyang, where he told the dismayed socialist ally that the change had been undertaken at the personal order of senior leader Deng Xiaoping, leaving the North Korean little room to argue.

As these developments were taking place, China was becoming North Korea’s No. 1 trading partner and foreign assistance donor, replacing the collapsing Soviet Union, which had vied with China for Pyongyang’s allegiance since the 1960s. But while Chinese trade was growing rapidly as a share of the North’s economy, it was a pittance compared to the startling increases in China’s burgeoning trade with the Republic of Korea, or South Korea, which previously had been handled through unofficial channels in the absence of diplomatic relations.

By 2004 China had become South Korea’s largest trading partner, surpassing its traditional partners of the United States and Japan. Two-way trade last year totaled $100 billion, with South Korea selling more than it bought from its fast-developing neighbor. China’s trade with North Korea was little more than $1.5 billion, much of which was highly concessional or outright aid.

Even as their relations with the South and with the rest of the capitalist world were changing dramatically, Chinese leaders were careful to maintain close ties with North Korea. Due in part to a shared history and in part to the fear that instability in North Korea could severely damage the borderland of northeast China, they have been extremely cautious about openly offending the DPRK. North Korea was considered the recipient of “a special relationship” to be handled largely by military and security agencies rather than normal diplomatic channels. For Chinese diplomats, think tanks and commentators, the difficult problems with North Korea were off-limits to public or even semi-official comment. Departures from declarations of undying friendship brought swift protests from Pyongyang.

Nuclear North Korea
Recently, however, relations with the DPRK were officially downgraded to a “normal relationship.” This might seem a small semantic shift, but it may have been a turning point of potentially great significance. Chinese leaders continue to deal carefully with Pyongyang to avoid an open break which could undermine Kim Jong Il’s regime and potentially lead to instability on China’s border. China continues to provide by far the largest share of aid and subsidized trade to its communist neighbor. Yet Beijing is notably more willing than before to act independently or even against the wishes of its long-term ally when its other interests seem more important.

A key factor behind the shift is China’s leading role in regional diplomacy aimed at reining in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. China, which is believed to have several hundred nuclear weapons and high-tech delivery systems, does not feel directly threatened by a nuclear North Korea but is gravely concerned that it could prompt South Korea and, even worse, Japan and Taiwan to follow suit with their own nuclear weapons programs. Moreover, China’s vital relationship with the United States, which is among its most important economically as well as politically, is deeply entwined with the international efforts to turn back the North Korean nuclear program.

At his Texas ranch in October 2002, President George W. Bush reportedly told Chinese President Jiang Zemin that improved Sino-American relations hinged on China’s efforts to dissuade North Korea from going forward with its nuclear program. Their meeting immediately followed the U.S. accusation that the DPRK was pursuing a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of its 1994 Agreed Framework nuclear pact with the United States. This accusation and follow-on U.S. actions led North Korea to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expel International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and resume the production of plutonium, which had been previously barred by the 1994 accord. According to a White House official who was monitoring the talks, Jiang told Bush that China does not support a North Korean nuclear weapons program, whereupon the U.S. president asked him point-blank, “What will you do about it?” Jiang was unable to respond.

The answer came in early March 2003, when the Chinese sent their Korea troubleshooter, Qian Qichen, by now retired as foreign minister but still a member of the country’s senior leadership, on a secret visit to Kim Jong Il, urging the DPRK to join multilateral talks on its nuclear program. A session of talks involving North Korea, the United States and China followed in April. The North Korean interlocutor, uncomfortable with the presence of Chinese diplomats, managed to make his most important declaration—that his country already possesses nuclear weapons—in a corner of a banquet room outside earshot of the Chinese hosts.

Troubled Alliance
With China’s prodding, four rounds of Six-Party Talks were held in 2003–05 involving diplomats from South Korea, Japan and Russia in addition to the three that started earlier. Under Chinese leadership, a statement of principles and objectives was issued by all six parties in September 2005, calling on North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program in return for concessions by the other five. Before the ink was dry on the accord, however, North Korea rejected part of the deal and the United States opted for new pressures rather than concessions.

China repeatedly called for North Korea to return to the Six-Party Talks it had sponsored, but Pyongyang turned a cold shoulder. Then this July 5 (July 4 U.S. time), Pyongyang tested seven ballistic missiles against China’s advice, including one long-range missile designed to have sufficient range to reach American territory. While the U.N. Security Council debated what steps to take in response, Beijing sent a high-level emissary, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, to Pyongyang. Kim Jong Il refused to see him, which angered China’s leaders anew.

At the United Nations in mid-July, China managed to water down a resolution sponsored by the United States, Japan and Britain threatening sanctions against North Korea under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, the mandatory-action- provision cited by Washington in launching invasions of Iraq in 1993 and 2003. Nonetheless, China sponsored and voted for a resolution that “condemned” the North Korean missile launches, by far the strongest language ever hurled by Beijing against its longstanding ally. In mid-October, following North Korea’s nuclear weapons test, which China strongly opposed, its U.N. representative joined in unanimously condemning North Korean actions anew. This time China went much further, joining the rest of the U.N. Security Council in demanding under the mandatory Chapter 7 of the charter that North Korea abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and calling on U.N. members to cease all trade that could assist the DPRK in nuclear and missile developments or exports.

How far China is willing to go in inspecting North Korea’s imports and exports and in reducing vital Chinese energy and food supplies to North Korea is unknown at this writing. It is evident, though, that the end of the “special relationship” has brought the troubled alliance of the two communist neighbors into a new era, with the potential for further significant change in turbulent Northeast Asia.

Don Oberdorfer, a former Washington Post diplomatic correspondent, is SAIS Journalist-in-Residence and chairman of the new U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS.