MCLC: China moves to ensure stability in N. Korea

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: China moves to ensure stability in N. Korea
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (12/19/11):
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/world/asia/china-moves-to-ensure-stabilit
y-in-north-korea.html

China Moves to Ensure Stability in North Korea
By EDWARD WONG

BEIJING ‹ Following the death of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader,
China is moving quickly to deepen its influence over senior officials in
North Korea and particularly with those in the military to try to ensure
stability in the isolated nation, according to Chinese and foreign former
government officials and analysts.

China is North Korea¹s foremost ally and leaders here had been hoping Mr.
Kim would live for at least another two or three years to solidify the
succession process that he had begun with his youngest son, Kim Jong-un,
the former officials and analysts say. Uncertainty now looms over whether
the younger Kim can consolidate his power in the face of competing elite
factions and whether he and other leaders will continue initiatives begun
by his father, including studying China as a model for possible economic
reforms, the observers say. The elder Kim had made four trips to China in
the last 18 months to look at a range of economic projects and Chinese
leaders had urged him to experiment with reforms.

The greatest concern for China is whether Mr. Kim¹s death will lead to a
rise in tensions on the divided Korean peninsula. That scenario could
unfold if generals in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, try to
reinforce their hold on power through aggression toward South Korea.
Unlike China, where the Communist Party stands as the ultimate authority,
the military is the final arbiter in North Korea.

Mr. Kim¹s death ³means that China will have to assume a heavier
responsibility over the relationship in order to maintain peace and
stability on the Korean peninsula,² said Xu Wenji, a professor of
Northeast Asian studies at Jilin University and a former Chinese envoy to
South Korea.

 Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University
in Beijing, said, ³The death significantly enhances uncertainty on the
peninsula.² He added: ³In my personal view, the succession is very hastily
arranged and Kim Jong-un is very ill-prepared to take over.²

 ³Frankly speaking, there is a substantial chance of political instability
in North Korea,² he said. ³This is based on the nature of the regime, the
inadequate process of succession and economic hardships in the country.²

As anxieties bubbled to the surface in Beijing, so did signs of mourning.
People brought bouquets of white flowers to the North Korean Embassy in
Beijing and were allowed inside. Police officers surrounding the building
kept all others at a distance. Asked about visas, a guard said, ³Come back
next year.² The flag atop the embassy roof was lowered to half-staff. One
resident of Beijing with ties to North Korea said telephone operators in
Pyongyang were crying when he got through to a call center there.

Evening newspapers in China ran front-page headlines
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/SPECIALCOVERAGE/KimJongIldies.aspx> above
photographs of Mr. Kim. Xinhua, the state news agency, cited a Foreign
Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, giving the official position on Mr. Kim¹s
death. Mr. Kim was a ³great leader,² Mr. Ma said, and ³China and North
Korea will strive together to continue making positive contributions.²

There were some irreverent takes. Netease, a popular Internet portal, ran
a topics page <http://t.163.com/zt/pub/jinzhengrijf> with a headline
saying: ³Kim Jong-il¹s Death Shows the Importance of Losing Weight.² The
subtitle was even more subversive: ³A government is just like a human
body, in that neither can afford to be too fat.² As of Monday evening, the
page was still online.

The strong ties between China and the two Kims were on display during a
lavish military parade in Pyongyang in October 2010 that was used to
signal to the world that the younger Kim would inherit power. There, Zhou
Yongkang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee who oversees the
public security apparatus, sat in the front row with the two Kims.
Afterward, the elder Kim began gradually introducing his successor to
various Chinese officials.

 ³At this moment, China might provide the best chance of stability,² said
Bob Carlin, a former State Department official and fellow at Stanford
University who travels to North Korea.

³They want to be the best informed and have a modicum of influence and
have people consulting with them at this moment,² he added. ³The rest of
us are deaf, dumb, blind and with our arms tied behind our backs.²

John Delury, a scholar of China and the two Koreas at Yonsei University in
Seoul, said: ³Chinese diplomats are the only ones who can pick up the
phone and talk to North Korean counterparts about what is going on, what
to expect. This reveals the fatal weakness in Washington and Seoul¹s
over-reliance on sanctions over the past three years.²
China wants North Korea to stand strong as a buffer state that keeps
American troops in South Korea at a distance, but relations between the
two communist countries have had to endure complicated twists in recent
years. Chinese officials were upset by North Korea¹s sudden shelling of
Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea in late 2010, and have lobbied North
Korean leaders to refrain from further military actions, analysts say.
Earlier in 2010, China was forced into an awkward position when South
Korea and the United States accused North Korea of sinking the Cheonan, a
South Korean warship, with a torpedo. The United States put pressure on
China to agree with its allegation, which China refused to do.

Those incidents might have increased anxieties in China about North Korea,
but they have also made North Korea more dependent on China for economic
support. Two scholars of North Korea at the Peterson Institute for
International Economics, Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, estimated in a
paper published this year that China and South Korea alone recently
accounted for 55 percent to 80 percent of North Korea¹s trade. After the
Cheonan sinking, most trade with South Korea stopped, so China became an
even bigger partner.

Exact trade figures are difficult to pinpoint. A paper published in
December 2010 by the Congressional Research Service estimated that in
2009, exports from North Korea to China increased to $793 million, while
Chinese exports to North slowed slightly to $1.9 billion. Chinese trade
and investment undercut the economic sanctions that the United States and
other nations imposed on North Korea to try to halt its nuclear program.

The trade can take many forms. Susan Shirk, a former State Department
official and professor of political science at the University of
California at San Diego, said she spoke with a North Korean man in
Pyongyang in September who was conducting state-to-state trade with China.
She said the North Korean worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and he
was selling iron ore to China at the price that China pays to large trade
partners like Australia; in return, he was buying corn from China at the
price on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that day.

North Korean leaders are also trying to jump-start the languishing trade
zone of Rason 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/world/asia/north-koreans-woo-business-to
-rason-economic-zone.html> on the Chinese border and to get Chinese
businesspeople to invest in tourism infrastructure
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/world/asia/04nkorea.html?pagewanted=all>
that includes a creaking cruise ship running between Rason and the Mount
Kumgang nature park
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/world/asia/north-korea-seeks-to-lure-tou
rists-to-holiday-cruises.html>.

Following Mr. Kim¹s death, the North Koreans ³are still going have to rely
on China to large degree,² said Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, an analyst
based in Beijing for the International Crisis Group. ³China and North
Korea are locked in this dance of interdependency. China is going to have
to continue to be a big benefactor and bankroll North Korea to a big
extent.²