Explaining Chinese foreign policy toward North Korea: Navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of proliferation and instability

Journal of Contemporary China

Volumn 17, Issue 56, 2008, Pages 401-423

  Twomey, Christopher ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BUREAUCRACY; FOREIGN POLICY; GEOPOLITICS; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; POLITICAL INSTABILITY; REGIONAL POLICY; REGIONAL POLITICS; REGIONAL SECURITY;

ASIA; BEIJING [CHINA]; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; KOREA; NORTH AMERICA; NORTH KOREA; UNITED STATES; WASHINGTON [UNITED STATES];

SCYLLA;

EID: 46249131792     PISSN: 10670564     EISSN: 14699400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10670560802000167     Document Type: Article

References (131)

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2. In interviews with Dr Sig Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, in mid-2006 the North Korean director of the Yongbyon facility suggested that some shutdown in 2007 was planned for replacing the fuel rods. (This would allow for approximately the same period of time that the reactor was run for before the 2005 rod extraction.) Furthermore, according to the same source, it is unclear if the North Koreans would be ready immediately to reload the reactor at that point, given difficulties in fabricating new fuel rods. Thus, the current (summer 2007) shutdown of the reactor may serve North Korean technical needs rather well and may not tell us anything regarding North Korean intentions in the long run. For the technical points, see Siegfried S. Hecker, Report on North Korean Nuclear Program (Palo Alto, CA: Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, 2006), pp. 5-6 and footnote 10, available at: http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/21266/DPRK-report-Hecker-06-1.pdf (accessed July 2007).
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13. Secondarily, this article also offers another data point to broader debates about the sources of foreign policy in general.
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20. Mearsheimer also refers to the utility in bolstering the capabilities of the buck-catcher (in this case North Korea).
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22. Further, as is increasingly clear in conversations with Chinese military leaders, China can and has responded fairly easily to ensure the continued deterrent of its own arsenal in the face of American missile defense efforts: Bin Li, 'Paper tiger with whitened teeth', China Security no. 4, (2006). This will reduce any fears such a program might provoke in Beijing.
23. Offensive realism gives somewhat unclear guidance on this issue in particular, although on balance the bulk of its attention seems to be concerned about the importance of great power conflict. Given that the United States already maintains a robust presence in Northeast Asia, it seems likely that China would focus on that aspect primarily, and proliferation through that lens.
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76. Themost thorough discussion of the ebbs and flows of economic reforms in North Korea is StephanHaggard and Marcus Noland, Famine in North Korea:MArkets, Aid, and Reform (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007).
77. For discussion of this, see the invaluable quarterly reports published by Pacific Forum-CSIS, such as Scott Snyder, 'A quarter of false starts', Comparative Connections 8(2), (2006). On the most recent round of sessions
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88. While it is certainly true that media controls have moderated substantially in the past several decades, it is also clear that this is least valid in security and foreign affairs realms. On the former, see 'We'll jolly well say what we want to', The Economist, (29 July 2006). On the latter
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95. On the depths of these concerns, see Murray Scot Tanner, 'China rethinks unrest', The Washington Quarterly 27(3), (2004), p. 153.
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101. Some question whether this was intended to send a specific signal to Pyongyang; see Scobell, 'China and North Korea', p. 24. It is striking, however, that since 2003 similar deployments have not been made to any other region. Indeed, the 2006 White Paper specifically refers to the needs of 'integrat[ing] land border defense and administration' regarding this substitution. It also makes clear that the substitution replaced People's Armed Police Frontier Defense Forces with the more heavily armed and capable PLA Frontier Defense Forces.
102. Similar moves were not known to be made to any of the areas bordering Central Asian states, where one might plausibly expect significant trans-border, low-level tension: 'PRC white paper discusses improvements to coastal, border defense', Xinhua (Beijing), (29 December 2006)
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112. Ibid.
113. 'Four Chinese commercial banks resume remittances to DPRK', Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Tokyo, Nikkei Telecom 21 Database Version), (28 November 2006) (OSC Translated Text, JPP20061128023001)
114. and 'China unfreezes half of North Korean accounts in Macao bank: report', Kyodo World Service (Tokyo), (20 November 2006).
115. James Cotton, 'The proliferation security initiative and North Korea: legality and limitations of a coalition strategy', Security Dialogue 36(2), (2005), p. 204
116. US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Testimony, Hearing on China's Proliferation Practices and Its Role in the North Korea Nuclear Crisis, (10 March 2005), p. 9.
117. ICG, 'China and North Korea: Comrades forever?', p. 24.
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120. 'Chinese investors hold back from investing in DPRK due to nuclear test', Zhongguo Jingying Bao (Beijing, Internet edition), (16 October 2006) (OSC Translated Text, CPP20061016071001).
121. 'NHK reports Chinese airline to suspend flights to Pyongyang', NHK General Television (Tokyo), (18 October 2006) (OSC Translated Text, JPP20061018038001).
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123. Feng Zhu, 'Shifting tides: China and North Korea', China Security no. 4, (2006), p. 47.
124. Scott Snyder, 'Regime change and another nuclear crisis', Comparative Connections 5(1), (2003), p. 100.
125. Scobell, 'China and North Korea', p. 8.
126. ICG, 'China and North Korea: Comrades forever?', pp. 17-18.
127. See Eric Heginbotham and Christopher P. Twomey, 'Controlling the barrel of the gun: Changing civ-mil relations in a politically fluid China', unpublished manuscript (Pittsburg, PA and Monterey, CA, 2007).
128. Rear Admiral Yi Yang, 'East Asia's nuclear future', in Christopher P. Twomey, ed., Perspectives on Sino-American Strategic Nuclear Issues (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008).
129. David Shambaugh, 'China engages Asia: Reshaping the regional order', International Security 29(3), (2004/05), p. 70.
130. That said, defensive realists have not laid out clear explanations for such variation in national interests, and one suspects that constructivists would have rather more to say about this issue, both in general and in this particular pair of Chinese cases.
131. For discussion of this, see Christopher P. Twomey, 'Grasping tactical success, missing strategic opportunity in US China policy since 9/11', Asian Survey 47(4), (August 2007).