China has long resisted strong-arm tactics against ally North Korea despite pressure from the United States, conscious that turmoil in its neighbour could create instability across the border.
Like all of the nations taking part in this week’s restarted six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes, China’s own interests rather than wider global concerns are at the heart of its decision-making process.
China is an emerging power and has more to lose than most, with fears among the leadership that any overthrow of the North Korean regime or aggression by the US could have dire consequences.
According to analysts, Kim Jong-Il is more of a moderate when it comes to nuclear weapons than some of the generals in the power structure.
China, which has consistently said it wants to see a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, understands this and prefers him in charge than one of the other hardliners.
”There are still people in North Korea worse than Kim, someone without his restraint,” said Brad Glosserman, a North Asia expert at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum, a foreign policy research institute.
As such, China has been reluctant to push its neighbour too hard for fear of it going further down the road to nuclearisation or conversely imploding and sending an exodus of refugees into northeast China.
”There is a strong mood of wounded pride and angry nationalism in Pyongyang …,” said Selig Harrison, a North Korean expert with close ties to senior North Korean officials and who held talks with the regime in April.
”It is particularly galling to North Korean leaders that the United States, oblivious to the sensitivity of Chinese-Korean relations throughout history, is attempting to apply pressure through China and to use it as a diplomatic intermediary.
”Thus, attempting to use China to pressure Pyongyang only strengthens the hardliners.”
It was these hardliners rather than Kim that were behind North Korea’s announcement in February that it possessed nuclear weapons, he added.
As North Korea’s main supplier of aid and energy, China is playing a delicate balancing act.
While concerned about the consequences of regime change, it is also worried about its neighbour possessing nuclear weapons.
”China will definitely not allow North Korea to have nuclear weapons. That could lead to Taiwan and Japan having nuclear weapons,” said Cui Yingjiu, the honorary head of Beijing University’s North Korea Cultural Institute.
China remains one of the few states with any influence in Pyongyang, thanks to food and oil aid, and is a long-time ally, fighting on North Korea’s side against US and South Korean forces in the 1950-53 Korean War.
It has initiated and hosted three rounds of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambitions since August 2003.
The drive has been its most significant diplomatic offensive in years as it attempts to find a peaceful solution to a crisis that could have serious implications for Beijing.
But conscious of sensitivities in the Stalinist state, it has repeatedly resisted any punitive actions, rejecting a US request to cut oil supplies and pressure to bring the crisis to the UN Security Council.
Instead, it has publicly made clear improving relations with the reclusive state is a priority, while at the same time trying to reinforce ties with Washington.
”Improving ties between Beijing and Pyongyang is a steadfast, strategic policy of the Chinese Communist Party and its government,” Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan was quoted by the North’s state media as saying after a meeting with Kim this month.
Laure Paquette, an expert in Northeast Asia at Lakehead University in Canada, said China would always adopt a pragmatic approach to North Korea.
”China will view any regime change strictly from its own, pragmatic point of view — is the new regime pliable to China’s interest? Will there be a limit to the number of refugees across the border?” she said. – Sapa-AFP