WASHINGTON — A month after the execution of Jang Song-thaek, widely viewed as North Korea’s second-most-powerful leader, China remains stymied in relations with its reclusive, defiant neighbor. This is not a new story. Though few in Beijing are prepared to admit it, China’s policies toward North Korea have long been a conspicuous failure.
China’s official reactions to the North’s internal power struggle have, thus far, been limited largely to formulaic calls for internal stability. But Mr. Jang’s ouster must be deeply disquieting to senior Chinese policy makers, who yet again find themselves on the outside looking in.
By nearly all indications, leaders in Beijing were blindsided by the latest events. By contrast, South Korean intelligence disclosed Mr. Jang’s fall from power a full five days before its stunning climax at a Politburo meeting on Dec. 8.
The Kim dynasty intends to keep China in the dark as fully as it can. Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, voice periodic frustration with North Korea, but none seems able or willing to translate Pyongyang’s ever increasing economic dependence on China into meaningful influence.
From the earliest years of China’s reforms, under Deng Xiaoping, Beijing has repeatedly sought to coax North Korea toward gradual economic change, normal relations with the outside world and increased attentiveness to Chinese interests. Yet North Korea continues to exhibit its characteristic mix of demands and defiance, including repeated threats aimed at South Korea and accelerated development of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles opposed by all outside powers, including China. Other than some modest steps toward informal marketization in the North, China’s policy record on Pyongyang over three decades remains unblemished by success.
Mr. Jang was China’s primary channel into the North. This did not make him Beijing’s man, but he had far more extensive international experience than any other leader in Pyongyang. His control of various business interests in the North and responsibility for special economic zones along the Chinese border enabled him to amass substantial economic power.
Beijing probably calculated that Mr. Jang was prepared to open a limited window into the North. The Chinese may also have seen him as a potential advocate for stability — which they had long sought in North Korea but never found.
But Mr. Jang had undoubtedly acquired numerous enemies during decades of unforgiving political warfare in Pyongyang. There were mounting suspicions within ruling circles that he was too beholden to Chinese interests. Mr. Jang’s accumulation of wealth and his economic links with China proved his undoing once Kim Jong-un, the third leader of the Kim dynasty, demanded a redistribution of the spoils.
North Korean officials linked to Mr. Jang now find themselves under suspicion; reportedly, others have also been purged or executed. Advocates of cooperation with China face greater risks as Mr. Kim consolidates his power and demands unquestioning loyalty from all subordinates. Without reliable allies in North Korea, China must deal with an impetuous and grandiose young leader who pays China very little heed.
Mr. Jang’s fall from power is the latest in a long succession of Chinese policy failures in North Korea. Many analysts argue that North Korea is a buffer state for China, used by Beijing to insulate it from American pressure. But the reverse is more the case: China is a buffer state for North Korea, for Beijing continues to be Pyongyang’s primary enabler.
Chinese foreign policy currently appears bold and assertive, but on the peninsula China’s stance remains exceedingly risk-averse. The question is why Beijing continues to exhibit such caution, even outright timidity, toward the North.
Some argue that the legacy of the Korean War weighs heavily on the minds of more traditional constituencies within the Chinese Communist Party and army. But deeper, current anxieties also inhibit Beijing. China fears that extreme actions by an unpredictable, heavily armed neighbor with a xenophobic leadership could trigger a larger crisis on the peninsula that would quickly involve China. Lacking realistic options to control North Korean behavior, China prefers instead to avoid doing anything that might alienate Pyongyang.
While China insists that it wants normal state-to-state relations with North Korea, it is not prepared to impose conditions on its isolated, troublesome neighbor, much less undertake a larger reassessment of its policies. As a consequence, Mr. Kim sees little reason to follow China’s advice, and he will continue to zealously guard against Chinese influence on the North.
The one exception to China’s passivity toward the North is its promotion of closer ties with Seoul. South Korea’s trade with China now exceeds $250 billion, more than the South’s combined trade with Japan and the United States. (China’s two-way trade with North Korea is worth approximately $6 billion.) South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, has already been welcomed on a state visit to Beijing; there has been no equivalent welcome for Mr. Kim, and it is not even certain that he seeks one.
China exhibits ample unease about addressing the larger risks posed by North Korea’s actions and goals. The purge of Mr. Jang serves only to underscore Beijing’s lack of influence in Pyongyang. The United States and South Korea both hope for more from China, but Beijing seems paralyzed in policy indecision.
The failures of policy on the Korean Peninsula are not those of China alone, but Beijing’s risk aversion bespeaks a larger absence of will and imagination on China’s part. Without a more candid conversation among Beijing, Seoul and Washington, the latent risk of an acute threat on the peninsula remains uncomfortably high.
South Korea and the United States seem fully prepared for serious dialogue with China. Only Beijing seems unable to decide, leaving unaddressed the prospect of a severe crisis that cannot possibly be in China’s interest.
Jonathan D. Pollack is the director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution and the author of “No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and International Security.”
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