Will Xi Jinping give up the Sino-North Korean alliance?: The enhancement of status quo of Kim Jong-un’s parallel development policy

ABSTRACT

Since North Korea’s third nuclear test and the purge of Jang Sung-taek in 2013, there have been strong debates on the future of the Sino-North Korean alliance, on whether it will be maintained or terminated. The definite answer will be obtained in 2021, when the Sino-North Korean alliance treaty is due to be renewed. Based on the structure of great power relations and the history surrounding the Korean peninsula, Xi Jinping is not expected to give up the Sino-North Korean alliance from a strategic point of view. The structure of Sino-North Korean relations can be defined as ‘the Strained Alliance’, in which the tension is in constant existence in the midst of cooperation or ‘the Alliance despite Antagonism or the Adversarial Alliance’. The Chinese policy towards North Korea during the Cold War retained strategic characteristics to adjust great power relations, while North Korean policy towards China searched for security assurance and economic cooperation, taking advantage of balanced power relations among great powers. Both countries, in the frame of great power relations, are obliged to maintain an adversarial alliance based on the compromise between North Korea’s system maintenance and China’s enhancement of its status quo. Xi’s global policy and Sino-American relations aim to form a new type of great power relations. This is in the process of realization through the stabilization policy involving the maintenance of Kim Jong-un’s leadership system in the Korean peninsula, including the Sino-North Korean alliance.

KEYWORDS:

• Sino-North Korean relations
• Sino-American relations
• alliance despite antagonism
• adversarial alliance
• status quo plus
• new type of great power relations
• Chinese dream

Acknowledgements

This study was supplemented and revised from a report submitted to RINSA, Research Institute for National Security Affairs of Korean National Defense University in 2014 (unpublished manuscript). I express my special thanks to Professor Kim Donggil of the Department of History at Beijing University for his insightful suggestions.

Notes

1. David Shambaugh classifies the Chinese foreign strategic groups into seven while Heung Kyu Kim classifies them into three groups. I evaluate that it is no longer easy to find an amicable research group or think-tank inside North Korea. The way that the Chinese researchers analyse the division of strategic groups regarding North Korea is nothing but one of the methods for a framework analysis. Most Chinese researchers of Xi Jinping’s regime are looking at North Korea in an objective and level-headed way. In addition, they are concerned about the perspective of how to deal with the Korean peninsula in this Sino-North Korean conflict structure. Therefore, I analyse that the Chinese researchers are only concerned about whether North Korea’s status quo is advantageous or not in favour of national profit.

2. Some researchers insisted that a Soviet-North Korean treaty and Sino-North Korean treaty have been concluded without announcing such to North Korea. What I have confirmed based on the declassified documents of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is that three countries have concluded such a treaty by way of comparing it with the other two treaties. The original text of those days has been disclosed but the annex clauses have not been disclosed up to now. Some researchers carry out comparative studies between the Sino-North Korean treaty and the Soviet-North Korean treaty. When the treaty was being signed, China made a detailed comparison and analysis of the Soviet–North Korean alliance and arranged the treaty sentences.

3. On 8 July 2010, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, commented officially that the South Korea–US military alliance is a relic of the Cold War and that this once caused Sino-Korean diplomatic challenges. In addition, since the sinking of Cheonan (ROK Navy’s fighting ship) in 2010, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has officially criticized numerous times the joint South Korea–US military exercises in the Korean peninsula.

4. Contrary to my opinion, some scholars, such as Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University and Jiang Rengui of Central Party School of the Communist Party, insist that the Sino-North Korean military alliance is not operating.

5. A ‘stakeholder’ is a concept proposed by Robert Zoellick, deputy secretary of state of the United States, in September of 2005. This means that recognizing China’s status, China should be the responsible great power who is actively willing to solve problems in international community. Furthermore, America stresses that if China is willing to solve problems actively conforming to the US-centred global system, then the profits will return to China as well. However, if China challenges America and does not contribute to problem solving, then China will suffer a loss. In addition, when US Vice President Joe Biden visited Beijing in December of 2013, he remarked, ‘US–China relations will become the central, sort of organizing principle in international relations for a long time’. This implies that when America considers whether China is a ‘responsible stakeholder’, America’s key criteria are based on China’s policy towards North Korea.

6. Apart from Professor Zhao Huji, there are many Chinese researchers whose opinions are quite similar to his: Regarding North Korea, in reality, there are few factors which could lead North Korea to cease pursuing nuclear weapons. In addition, because there are no more sanctions remaining to be imposed on North Korea by the international community, many states insist on the need to induce reformation and liberation in North Korea instead.