The China-North Korea Relationship

Introduction

China is North Korea's most important ally, biggest trading partner, and main source of food, arms, and fuel. In the hope of avoiding regime collapse and an uncontrolled influx of refugees across its 800-mile border with North Korea, China has helped sustain Kim Jong-Il's regime and opposed harsh international economic sanctions. After Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006, experts say that China has reconsidered the nature of its alliance to include both pressure and inducements. But Beijing, arguably, continues to have more leverage over Pyongyang than any other nation and has played a central role in the ongoing Six-Party Talks, the multilateral framework aimed at denuclearizing North Korea.

Strong Allies

China has supported North Korea ever since Chinese fighters flooded onto the Korean peninsula to fight for their comrades in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1950. Since the Korean War divided the peninsula between the North and South, China has lent political and economic backing to North Korea's leaders: Kim Il Sung and his son and successor, Kim Jong-Il.

In recent years, China has been one of the authoritarian regime's few allies. But this long-standing relationship suffered a strain when Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006 and China agreed to UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which imposed sanctions on Pyongyang. By signing off on this resolution -- as well as earlier UN sanctions that followed the DPRK's July 2006 missile tests -- Beijing departed from its traditional relationship with North Korea, changing from a tone of diplomacy to one of punishment. Jonathan D. Pollack, an East Asia expert at the Naval War College, describes the DPRK's tests as "jarring" to China's diplomatic effort to compel North Korea to the Six-Party Talks. He says Kim Jong-Il was effectively telling Beijing, "You can not tell us what to do and we can not be taken for granted.'" Despite their long alliance, experts say Beijing does not control Pyongyang. "In general, Americans tend to overestimate the influence China has over North Korea," says Daniel Pinkston, a Northeast Asia expert at the International Crisis Group.

At the same time, China has too much at stake in North Korea to halt or withdraw its support entirely. "The idea that the Chinese would turn their backs on the North Koreans is clearly wrong," says Adam Segal, CFR senior fellow for China studies. Beijing only agreed to UN Resolution 1718 after revisions that removed requirements for tough economic sanctions beyond those targeting luxury goods, and China's trade with North Korea has continued to increase. The Chinese are "doing just what they have to do and no more" in terms of punishing North Korea, says Selig S. Harrison, Asia program director at the Center for International Policy. He says the two countries will not jeopardize their mutually beneficial economic relationship.

Pyongyang's Gains

Pyongyang is economically dependent on China, which provides most of its food and energy supplies. According to Nicholas Eberstadt, a consultant at the World Bank, since the early 1990s, China has served as North Korea's chief food supplier and has accounted for nearly 90 percent of the country's energy imports.

China also provides aid directly to Pyongyang. "It is widely believed that Chinese food aid is channeled to the military," (PDF) reports the Congressional Research Service, which allows the World Food Program's food aid to be targeted at the general population "without risk that the military-first policy or regime stability would be undermined by foreign aid policies of other countries."

China is also a strong political ally. "As an authoritarian regime that reformed, they understand what Kim Jong-Il is most concerned with -- survival," Segal says. China has repeatedly blocked UN Security Council resolutions against North Korea, including some threatening sanctions.

China's Priorities

China's support for Pyongyang ensures a friendly nation on its northeastern border, as well as providing a buffer zone between China and democratic South Korea, which is home to around 29,000 U.S. troops and marines. This allows China to reduce its military deployment in its Northeast and "focus more directly on the issue of Taiwanese independence," Shen Dingli of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai writes in China Security (PDF). North Korea's allegiance is important to Beijing as a bulwark against U.S. military dominance of the region as well as against the rise of Japan's military.

China also gains economically from its association with North Korea; growing numbers of Chinese firms are investing in North Korea and gaining concessions like preferable trading terms and port operations. Chinese trade and investment in North Korea now totals $2 billion per year. "They're becoming a stakeholder in the North Korean economy," Pinkston says.

"For the Chinese, stability and the avoidance of war are the top priorities," says Daniel Sneider, the associate director for research at Stanford's Asia-Pacific Research Center. "From that point of view, the North Koreans are a huge problem for them, because Pyongyang could trigger a war on its own." Stability is a huge worry for Beijing because of the specter of hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees flooding into China. "The Chinese are most concerned about the collapse of North Korea leading to chaos on the border," Segal says. If North Korea does provoke a war with the United States, China and South Korea would bear the brunt of any military confrontation on the Korean peninsula. Yet both those countries have been hesitant about pushing Pyongyang too hard, for fear of making Kim's regime collapse. The current flow of refugees into China is already a problem: China has promised Pyongyang that it will repatriate North Koreans escaping across the border, but invites condemnation from human rights groups when sending them back to the DPRK. Jing-dong Yuan of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California says Beijing began its construction of a barbed wire fence along this border in 2006 for that reason.

Experts say China has also been ambiguous on the question of its commitment to intervene for the defense of North Korea in case of military conflict. According to the 1961 Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, China is obliged to defend North Korea against unprovoked aggression. But Jaewoo Choo, assistant professor of Chinese foreign policy at Kyung Hee University in South Korea, writes in Asian Survey that "China conceives itself to have the right to make an authoritative interpretation of the principle for intervention," (PDF) in the treaty. As a result of changes in regional security in a post-Cold War world, he writes, "China now places more value on national interest, over alliances blinded by ideology." But, he argues, Chinese ambiguity deters others from taking military action against Pyongyang.

Beijing's Leverage

Beijing has been successful in bringing North Korean officials to the negotiating table at the Six-Party Talks many times. "It's clear that the Chinese have enormous leverage on North Korea in many respects," Sneider says. "But can China actually try to exercise that influence without destabilizing the regime? Probably not." Pinkston says that for all of North Korea's growing economic ties with China, Kim still makes up his own mind: "At the end of the day, China has little influence over the military decisions."