Retooling great power nonproliferation theory: Explaining China's North Korea nuclear weapons policy

Abstract

China’s policy toward North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme represents an empirical and theoretical puzzle. Contrary to political relationship theory, Beijing has opposed its ally North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons. And contrary to power projection theory, a favourable asymmetry in material power has not resulted in Beijing being able to persuade, or otherwise coerce Pyongyang into terminating its nuclear weapons programme. To understand China’s policy on the North Korean nuclear proliferation issue, the concepts of power and power projection need to be understood differently, in relational power terms. The relational view of power calls for the specification of scope, domain, the means, and the opportunity cost of alternative policy options. Once this is done, the limits and complexities of Chinese policy come into clearer focus.

Keywords:

• China
• North Korea
• nuclear weapons
• nuclear proliferation
• relational power
• power projection

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following for comments on this article: Charles Armstrong, Peter Grace, Sung Yong Lee, Robert Ross, Laura Southgate, Lena Tan, John Tai, Zhang Qingmin, and Paul Winter.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Following Jack Levy, I define a great power as “a state that is able to play a major role in international politics with respect to security-related issues. The great powers can be differentiated from other states by their military power, their interests, their behavior in general and interactions with other powers, [and] other powers’ perception of them.” Levy, 1983, p. 16.

2 A recent quantitative study of the sensitive nuclear proliferation policies of the first five nuclear powers from 1945–2000 finds that nuclear technology transfers were overwhelmingly not made to allies or states aligned to great powers (Kroenig, 2014, pp. 16–20). There are nine instances of the five nuclear powers providing sensitive nuclear assistance to states during the Cold War. In seven cases, these involved non-allies. In only two cases were allies involved. These are Chinese assistance to Pakistan, and Soviet nuclear assistance to China from 1957 to 1958, which was quickly terminated within two years, as the alliance unraveled (Khan, 2012, Lewis & Xue, 1988).

3 Moscow formed an alliance with India in 1971, with New Delhi testing a nuclear weapon for the first time in 1974.

4 These are: China, France, the US, United Kingdom, Soviet Union/Russia.

5 Hymans surveys the various definitions for when a state becomes a Nuclear Weapons State (NWS). The traditional definition defines a state as a NWS when it conducts its first nuclear test. More recently, some analysts have argued that our attention should be focused on the accumulation of fissile material (Hymans, 2010).

6 While ‘power as resource’ analysts do attempt to offer causal explanations of power relationships, this has proven to be challenging. In this regard, particularly acute problems include poor measures of power, inaccurate predictions, and spurious causation.

7 Another stick that China possesses concerns its ability to regulate, through inspections, of smuggling by Chinese citizens and state-linked Chinese actors.

8 These include: North Korean security from attack; regime survival; as a bargaining chip; a revenue source; and as a mechanism for Kim Jong-un to solidify his relationship with the North Korean military.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Khoo

Nicholas Khoo is Associate Professor in the Politics Programme, University of Otago in New Zealand. His research interests include Chinese foreign policy and Asian Security. He is author of Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (Columbia University Press, 2011), co-author of Asian Security and the Rise of China: International Relations in an Age of Volatility (Edward Elgar, 2013), co-author of Security at a Price: The International Politics of U.S. Missile Defense (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), and author of the forthcoming Return to Power: China in East Asia Since 1978 (Edward Elgar, 2020).