Opinion | A changing North Korea will prove a headache for China
Philip Bowring says while Pyongyang's bluster is not new, the signs of its opening are, for it probably sees that the status quo is good for everyone but itself. China must stay alert
It is not an unknown unknown but, of all the world's known unknowns, the future of North Korea is perhaps the hardest to predict and hence presents China with unknown difficulties ahead.
Today's difficulty is mainly one of embarrassment, to have an ally who treats its own people with such contempt, draws communism further into the mire, and creates international incidents with nuclear and missile developments, meanwhile ignoring Beijing's mild chastisements and sensible advice.
But there are worse things in life for major powers than embarrassment. The US has plenty to be embarrassed about with the behaviour of its nuclear friend, Israel, and its shrugging off of mild chastisements over Jewish settlements. So North Korea is, for now, a small issue in China's overall standing in the world. The bigger problems are ahead.
Pyongyang's latest verbal aggressions as well as missile and nuclear tests are just more of the same tactics it has used for two decades. Deterrence abroad and repression at home is the only way to keep the regime in power. Creating supposed crises raises its status in the world without really threatening anybody.
However, the latest "crisis" has come at a particularly bad time for China, which has responded with criticism of Pyongyang and a polite reception in Beijing for the new US Secretary of State, John Kerry. The reason is simple: the past year's ramping up by China of its row with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, and the projection of its extravagant claims over the South China Sea, have already provided reason for the US and Japan to strengthen their regional military capability and alliances. Pyongyang's behaviour has provided another.
Now Beijing can, and probably will, take a step back on the island issues but it has scant room for manoeuvre over policy towards the North, whose regime it will continue to help sustain for lack of any better option. Nor can it put the nuclear genie back in the bottle; no state has yet renounced nuclear weapons once it actually has them.
China must also face the fact of Korean nationalism. However much South Koreans detest the Pyongyang regime, there are plenty who admire its bull-headed refusal to be bullied by it allies.