What if Pyongyang is using nuclearization as a means to alter the terms of its relationship with China?
The last few years have witnessed dramatic oscillations in the tenor and substance of the Sino-North Korean relationship. As is well known, the relationship suffered a deep dive in 2017 through to mid-2018 on the back of a number of North Korean missile and nuclear weapons tests — provocations that prompted China to publicly rebuke Pyongyang and even support sanctions against the hermit state. However, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping have since met on three occasions, and these meetings have been followed by a series of lower level bilateral forums and increases in Chinese aid. The latter developments not only defied trends; they also surprised many well-credentialed analysts whom several month ago concluded that the special, so-called “blood alliance,” or “lips and teeth” relationship between these two neighbors, is no more. How or why did these experts get it wrong?
The notion that China and North Korea no longer share the “lips and teeth” alliance of yesteryear is a theory that had garnered significant currency among Western analysts and some Chinese scholars. However, the Australian National University’s Yu-Hua Chen has argued that “those who think that the relationship has markedly changed didn’t understand it to begin with.” Chen noted that the true meaning of the oft-invoked analogy of “lips and teeth” has nothing to do with ideological or affective closeness (i.e., a “blood alliance”), but rather reflects North Korea’s importance to China as a buffer against the United States and its allies (i.e., “lips” that protect the “teeth” from exposure to the “cold”). In other words, an underlying stability belies the external appearance of volatility in the Sino-North relationship, because the essential foundation of China’s special relationship with Pyongyang is not less-immutable factors such as affective sentiments, but rather a more enduring geostrategic reality.
Chen’s theory reflects a conventional position on Sino-North Korean relations among defense and security analysts. However, this position has its own weaknesses. Foremost among them is the argument that the buffer theory does not tally with China’s reluctance to make strong commitments to defend its “buffer” from foreign (in particular U. S.) aggression. Adam Cathcart noted several years ago that formal Chinese agreements to defend North Korea from nuclear attack are far weaker than those that oblige the United States to defend South Korea and Japan, and that this fact may have motivated the North to step up its efforts to develop an autonomous nuclear deterrent capacity. As the North’s nuclearization accelerated, this commitment appears to have weakened further — for instance, Beijing has recently signaled that it would not defend Pyongyang if the latter attacked another country. There has even been speculation that China may refuse to extend its mutual defense agreement with North Korea (the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty), which is due to expire on 2021.
If geostrategic concerns are the central factor guiding China’s relationship with North Korea, why would China appear reluctant to defend its “buffer” to the hilt? A possible answer to this conundrum can be found in a recent article written by Li Bin, an expert on nuclear proliferation from Tsinghua University’s influential Institute for International Relations. Li noted that China’s protection of, and assistance toward, North Korea has rarely delivered commensurate levels of Chinese political influence over a recalcitrant Pyongyang. The fear for China, thus, is that if it committed to protect Pyongyang “yet could not effectively influence North Korea, then North Korea may act in accordance with the its own security aims, dragging China into military conflict with other countries.” In other words, the buffer imperative may be one reason why China is refusing to commit to defend its neighbor — signing a comprehensive mutual defense agreement may in fact encourage Pyongyang to behave in a way that undermines its role or value as a buffer.
A different but not incompatible explanation for China’s reluctance to offer a stronger mutual defense agreement to Pyongyang has been forwarded by Zhang Lianmei, a senior scholar based at the Institute for International Strategic Studies of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China. For Zhang, the crux of the problem is that North Korea would not want stronger protections in the first place, because it would likely view proposals of this kind — such as offers to extend the protection of a nuclear umbrella — as a means to erode Pyongyang’s autonomy and exert Chinese suzerainty. Zhang points out that many analysts underestimate North Korea’s suspicion that Beijing conspires to subvert its autonomy, and the gravity this concern has in the architecture of North Korea’s political consciousness, culture, and even its constitution. Zhang notes that a core component of North Korea’s much discussed tenet of “self reliance” is the notion of opposing “servitude to great states” (saede). This has a “concrete meaning in the history of the Korean peninsula” — referring primarily to the Korean Joseon Dynasty’s China policy, and modern North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung’s battles against the pro-China Yan’an (Yeonan) political faction. Thus for Zhang, any measure that could paint the North as a de facto protectorate of China could imperil the bilateral relationship and encourage, rather than dissuade, North Korean belligerence.
