These problems and risks may lead China to do more in the future to try to influence the DPRK to decrease provocations and give up nuclear development, but this is far from clear. China provides the bulk of food, fuel, and development aid to the DPRK. Since 2008, China has been the only regular source of assistance, providing an estimated 100,000 tons of food, 500,000 tons of oil (70% of the DPRK’s fuel), and $20 million worth of goods annually. The PRC also often sends free aid shipments, though the contents and scale are not usually made public. One example was a December 2011 delivery of 500,000 tons of food and 250,000 tons of oil to assist in stabilizing the new DPRK regime.191 Without China’s assistance, the North Korean regime would be unlikely to last long.
Furthermore, a June 2012 UN report looking into the past several years of DPRK sanctions enforcement listed Chinese involvement in 21 of the 38 suspected breaches of sanctions addressing luxury items and weapons. In two of those instances, China was involved in the DPRK’s ballistic missile component and other unconventional weapons materials purchases or sales.192
China has long taken a “no war, no instability, no nukes” ( ) position regarding the Koreas as well as desired to maintain the useful purpose the DPRK serves as a buffer state against the ROK. Also, in the event of a regime collapse or other large-scale unrest, China worries about a mass influx of refugees pouring into its northeastern provinces. In the context of the US’s rebalance towards Asia, the buffer provided by the DPRK could be increasingly important in Chinese strategic calculation.193
China has, however, consistently prioritized peace and stability over denuclearization and control of the DPRK, and is unwilling to put substantial pressure on the DPRK for fear of decreasing the stability of the current regime – despite China’s clear preference for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. CSIS’s Victor Cha calls this a “mutual hostage” relationship.194
One ROK scholar at Seoul National University has argued that there are three structural and perceptual obstacles that make any change in China’s DPRK policy unlikely or even impossible:195
First, Beijing predicts a difficult future for Sino-U.S. relations. Second, Beijing views U.S. alliances with South Korea and Japan as part of a U.S. strategy to contain China's rise. Third, the Korean peninsula lacks a stable mechanism for peace. Since none of these obstacles is likely to be addressed in the near term, China's modus operandi regarding North Korea is likely to remain unchanged, rendering the regional situation similar to that of the past.
At the same time, some in China worry that the ROK, Japan, or even Taiwan could develop nuclear weapons due to the growing DPRK threat. The increase in nuclear weapons states not sanctioned by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) could cause the NPT to collapse, creating more uncertainty in international security.196
Also, the DPRK could transfer nuclear materials, knowledge, or technology to another country or non-state actor, potentially to the detriment of Chinese security.197 Other Asia-Pacific countries could also be pushed towards the US, which would be contrary to Chinese regional interest and attempts to increase its soft power appeal.198 Internationally, China loses face and reputation by its support of the DPRK.
China must also consider the risk that the DPRK might go too far and trigger a US strike against the DPRK. If such a strike left the present DPRK regime in place, this would not harm Chinese security interests and would embarrass China if it did react. If the regime did fall as a result, or if the ROK and US intervened in response to DPRK instability, the result might be a reunified peninsula under ROK control – giving South Korea control of the North’s weapons, and putting US soldiers at the Chinese border.199 To mitigate this Chinese fear, at least, former ROK President Lee Myung-bak has argued that the ROK should signal China through an NGO that, in the case of reunification due to a contingency in the DPRK, the US military would stay south of the DMZ.200
China does, however, need to consider how much a DPRK strategic buffer is worth, and whether it could find a way to put a more moderate and stable regime in place. The issue is not simply a matter of military risk. China’s continued support of the DPRK has led to strained relations with the US, ROK, and Japan as a result of the increase in DPRK provocations over the course of the past decade, in particular nuclear and missile tests and the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents.
As a result, the ROK and Japan have strengthened their alliances with the US and increased bilateral coordination with each other, as well as considered expansion of their own missile forces and missile defense, and increased other aspects of the regional arms race. China’s diplomatic shielding of the DPRK has also weakened its claim to be an honest broker in the Six Party Talks and tarnished its international image, especially at the UN, while perhaps encouraging risky DPRK moves due to lack of Chinese punishment.201
China seems to have realized that more pressure on the DPRK is necessary to make progress towards denuclearization in the wake of the DPRK nuclear test. The PRC has put some open pressure on the DPRK to assuage US demands that it use its leverage to greater effect. In early May 2013, China’s chief nuclear envoy told ROK diplomats that China will not accept the DPRK as a “nuclear-armed state,” and a consensus on this issue between the ROK, US, and China appears to have been reached.202
Chinese efforts taken to pressure the DPRK include:203
Delaying aid shipments
Raising the nuclear issue in many official exchanges, regardless of the primary issue at hand
Special envoys with letters or messages to heed PRC warnings, at critical times
Chinese leaders using more forceful language with DPRK leaders
Chinese officials occasionally publically stating their frustrations with the DPRK
Increasing news references to the differences between the two countries and Chinese actions in response to the DPRK’s destabilizing acts
Discussion of the DPRK in multilateral settings, including those with the ROK and Japan, and voicing of opposition to DPRK provocations and nuclear ambitions
Denials of DPRK requests for military aid
Tightening of export control policies to restrict the sale of dual-use items to the DPRK.
Starting in 2003, China used incentives and rewards to gain DPRK participation in the Six Party Talks, while from 2006-2009, China switched to increased use of coercive measures to influence the DPRK. Since 2009, China has instead followed comprehensive engagement in an attempt to increase influence over the DPRK, enhancing high-level ties in a variety of areas and sectors.
This has led to an increase in the economic instruments being used to influence DPRK behavior, with the primary goals of the DPRK engaging in policies that paralleled Chinese interests and curbing costly DPRK provocations.204
North Korea was discussed at length during the early-June 2003 summit between Presidents Obama and Xi. It also reported that Chinese officials discussed using their economic and energy provision to the DPRK as leverage in DPRK provocations. American officials reported that the Chinese apparently agreed with the US that if the DPRK continues to develop nuclear weapons, the US will further increase its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, while the ROK and Japan will be much more likely to develop their own weapons in advance – potentially further destabilizing the region.205
According to US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, China and the US agreed that dealing with the DPRK’s nuclear arsenal was a promising issue for “enhanced cooperation.” The two agreed that they should work together to achieve denuclearization of the DPRK and “that North Korea has to denuclearize, that neither country will accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.”206
Much will depend, however, on the broader interactions between the US and Chinese military strategies and force development plans that affect their overall security policies in Northeast Asia, the rest of Asia, and the Pacific. According to the Department of Defense report for 2013, China sees stable relations with its neighbors and the US as essential to stability and necessary for maximizing its current window of opportunity to expand and develop as a great power. At the same time, “China’s growing economic and military confidence and capabilities occasionally manifest in more assertive rhetoric and behavior when Beijing perceives threats to its national interests or feels compelled to respond to public expectations.”207
China, in turn, sees the US as an increasing risk. Whatever it may think of the DPRK, it may see the US rebalance to Asia as potentially as threatening as the US see the modernization of Chinese forces and the steady expansion of Chinese power projection and anti-access area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. Once again, the choice each power makes between cooperation and competition is likely to be a key factor in shaping not only their capabilities in the Koreas and Northeast Asia, but the reactions and strategies of the ROK and Japan.
Japan
Japan sees the DPRK’s military build-up, political hostility, and North Korea’s nuclear programs as a direct threat to Japanese national security. The government takes the position that one key way to counteract this threat is through close cooperation with the ROK and the US, allowing for the strict implementation of bilateral and UN Security Council sanctions. At the same time, the Japanese government holds that the Six Party Talks should be continued in order to move forward with denuclearization of the DPRK.208
Japanese relations with the ROK are based on common strategic interests, but there are also serious tensions. An analysis by the US CRS summarizes Japan’s policies towards the Koreas as follows:209
After a period of relatively warm ties and the promise of more effective security cooperation, Tokyo-Seoul ties appear to have cooled anew. Under the DPJ governments and the Lee Myungbak administration in Seoul, South Korea and Japan managed historical issues, cooperated in responding to North Korean provocations, and exchanged observers at military exercises. The two countries were on the verge of
concluding two modest but significant bilateral security agreements on information sharing and military acquisitions until an anti-Japanese outcry in South Korea scuttled the signing. The new governments in both capitals appear less likely to reach out to each other, dimming U.S. hopes for more sustained trilateral cooperation among the three democracies. Policy toward North Korea has been the one issue where regular trilateral consultation persists, and the February 2013 nuclear test by North Korea will provide an opportunity for the three capitals to coordinate their response.
…. In addition to the comfort women issue discussed above, the perennial issues of a territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea and Japanese history textbooks continue to periodically ruffle relations. A group of small islands in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese (referred to as the Liancourt Rocks by the United States) are administered by South Korea but claimed by Japan.
Mentions of the claims in Japanese defense documents or by local prefectures routinely spark official criticism and public outcry in South Korea. Similarly, Seoul expresses disapproval of some of the history textbooks approved by Japan’s Ministry of Education that South Koreans claim diminish or whitewash Japan’s colonial-era atrocities.
Some of Abe’s cabinet appointments have raised concern among South Koreans. Minister of Education Hakubun Shimomura has criticized history textbook companies for being insufficiently patriotic by, among other items, giving undue deference to the concerns of China and South Korea in their presentation of Japan’s colonial past. Abe’s appointment of Shimomura appears to signal his intent to follow through on the LDP’s pre-election advocacy of reducing “self-torturing views of history” in education and of giving the central government greater authority over the content of history textbooks. Abe’s Cabinet also includes Internal Affairs Minister Yoshitaka Shindo and Minister for Administrative Reform Tomomi Inada, who have aggressively asserted Japanese territorial claims, including a well-publicized attempt to visit South Korea in 2011 to advocate for Japanese sovereignty over the Dokdo/Takeshima islets.
…Since 2009, Washington and Tokyo have been strongly united in their approach to North Korea.
Although the U.S. and Japanese positions diverged in the later years of the Bush Administration, Pyongyang’s string of provocations in 2009-2010 forged a new consensus among Japan, South Korea, and the United States. North Korea’s provocations have helped to drive enhanced trilateral security cooperation between Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul. Japan also appeared to be at least somewhat in synch with the United States in late 2011 and early 2012 when the Obama Administration—with the blessing of the South Korean government—was negotiating agreements with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs and food aid. North Korea’s 2012 missile launches and the February 2013 nuclear test are likely to drive closer cooperation among the three governments.
Tokyo has adopted a relatively hardline policy against North Korea and plays a leadership role at the United Nations in pushing for stronger punishment for the Pyongyang regime for its military provocations and human rights abuses. Japan has imposed a virtual embargo on all trade with North Korea. North Korea’s missile tests have demonstrated that a strike on Japan is well within range, spurring Japan to move forward on missile defense cooperation with the United States. In addition to Japan’s concern about Pyongyang’s weapons and delivery systems, the issue of several Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s remains a top priority for Tokyo. Japan has pledged that it will not provide economic aid to North Korea without resolution of the abductee issue. The abductee issue remains an emotional topic in Japan.
In 2008, the Bush Administration’s decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for North Korean concessions on its nuclear program dismayed Japanese officials, who had maintained that North Korea’s status on the list should be linked to the abduction issue. Although the abductions issue has lost potency in recent years, Abe came onto the political scene in the early 2000s as a fierce advocate for the abductees and their families and could dedicate attention to the issue.
In late 2013 and 2014, relations between Japan and South Korea showed no signs of significant improvement.210
Japan’s relations with South Korea continued to worsen in late 2013 and early 2014, a development that drew considerable attention from U.S. policymakers and Members of Congress who met with officials from each country. A poor relationship between Seoul and Tokyo jeopardizes U.S. interests by complicating trilateral cooperation on North Korea policy and other regional challenges.
…Tense relations also complicate Japan’s desire to expand its military and diplomatic influence, goals the Obama Administration generally supports, as well as the creation of an integrated U.S.-Japan-South Korea ballistic missile defense system. Furthermore, South Korea-Japan frictions could damage U.S. relations with South Korea or Japan if and when either country feels the United States is taking the other country’s side in the ongoing bilateral disputes.
As of February 2014, Abe and his South Korean counterpart President Park Geun-hye had yet to hold a summit, and the high-level interaction that has occurred between the two governments frequently has been contentious. South Korean leaders have objected to a series of statements and actions by Abe and his Cabinet officials that many have interpreted as denying or even glorifying Imperial Japan’s aggression in the early 20th Century. For much of 2013, South Korean leaders stated that they would have difficulty holding a summit, or improving relations, unless Japan adopts a “correct understanding” of history. Many Japanese argue that for years South Korean leaders have not recognized and in some cases rejected the efforts Japan has made to acknowledge and apologize for Imperial Japan’s actions. As a result, South Korea has arguably helped to undermine those Japanese who have made such overtures, including a proposal that the previous Japanese government floated in 2012 to provide a new apology and humanitarian payments to the surviving “comfort women.” During the fall of 2013, many U.S. policymakers and Asia watchers grew concerned that the Park government, by appearing to allow history issues to affect most aspects of Seoul-Tokyo relations, was being overly narrow and was damaging U.S. interests in Asia. Abe’s visit to Yasukuni in December 2013, however, shifted the focus back to Japan.