How Chinese diplomacy can shape US policy on North Korea
Zhang Baohui says Beijing must show Washington that only dialogue with North Korea, coupled with sanctions, will be effective in averting catastrophe
A more promising approach lies in diplomacy and sanctions working in tandem. In this regard, China should use its critical position to shape the world’s course of action. Specifically, Beijing needs to insist on the US committing to dialogue with North Korea as a condition for supporting any more sanctions.
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Sanctions, including a ban on the sale of oil, cannot address the root cause of North Korea’s nuclear ambition. Fundamentally, North Korea is no different from other countries; they are all shaped by the same anarchic order of the international system, so-called because it lacks a centralised authority. This anarchic context makes all states insecure, and motivates them to adopt an assuming-the-worst mindset for their security. They tend to exaggerate external threats and are inclined to use all means available to provide for their own security.
Its quest for nuclear capabilities, which began with the dawning of the US-led unipolar system in the 1990s, is an inevitable response to the power imbalance and the consequent insecurity. Indeed, even the US, as the world’s most powerful country, feels insecure and insists on possessing more nuclear weapons than others.
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To resolve this nuclear quagmire, the US needs to provide measures that reduce Pyongyang’s insecurity. This requires Washington to engage and assure North Korea the US intends it no harm. The best way to assure North Korea about its security is to end the cold war situation between the two countries.
North Korea has repeatedly signalled that appropriate US measures, like a peace treaty to formally end the Korean war and normalisation of relations between the two countries, could create the conditions for a freeze of its nuclear and missile programmes.
In June, Kye Chun-yong, North Korea’s ambassador to India, put it more explicitly, saying, “Under certain circumstances, we are willing to talk in terms of freezing our nuclear and missile testing.”
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Even worse, North Korea may resort to its old brinkmanship game to force the world to back off. It may threaten direct but limited military actions against US allies in the region, provoking a security crisis. Now nuclear-armed, North Korea’s brinkmanship would generate tremendous pressure on the decision-makers in Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing. They would face the stark choice of either war, which could involve the nuclear scenario, or humiliating compromises with Pyongyang.
China owes this to the world. Its peculiar role in the situation requires Beijing to tell the Trump administration that world peace is at stake and that everyone, including the US, must exhaust all diplomatic means to make it possible to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear quagmire.
Zhang Baohui is a professor of political science and director of the Centre for Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He is the author of China’s Assertive Nuclear Posture: State Security in an Anarchic International Order