CIAO DATE: 12/2013
December 2013
China tolerates the nuclear ambitions of North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK) for now because its interests in the neighbourhood are much wider and more complex than this single issue. Beijing and the West often work toward their shared goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula with contradictory approaches that reflect their different priorities. The West uses diplomatic isolation, economic sanctions and extended deterrence to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program. Many Western policymakers believe the DPRK will denuclearise if sufficient costs are imposed and that Beijing holds the keys because the North is economically dependent on it. But China is reluctant to take any coercive action that might destabilise the regime and change a de licate geopolitical balance. It instead continues with diplomatic engagement and economic cooperation as the instruments it hopes will cause the leadership to denuclearise in the indeterminate future. A decade has passed since the Six-Party Talks (China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S.) were convened to roll back the DPRK nuclear program; the last round was in December 2008. When the process began, many expected that the North’s brinkmanship and transgressions would lead China to exert strong pressure on it to reverse course. In that decade, however, the DPRK has conducted three under- ground nuclear tests and four long-range missile flight tests, torpedoed a South Korean (Republic of Korea, ROK) naval patrol boat and shelled a South Korean island, while still receiving political and economic support.
Resource link: Fire on the City Gate: Why China Keeps North Korea Close [PDF] - 2.0M