As US urges China to rein in North Korea, Beijing’s reluctance to act could backfire, analysts say

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warns if Beijing does not push the North on nuclear programme, US will expand alliance with Tokyo and Seoul
China faces ‘dilemma’ as its influence over hermit kingdom may wane if Pyongyang makes progress on nukes, observer says

US-China relations

Seong Hyeon Choi

Published: 10:00am, 26 Jul 2023

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged China to help contain North Korea’s nuclear programme as analysts warned that a lack of action to rein in Pyongyang could end up harming Beijing’s security interests.

Blinken said on Friday that China had a “unique influence” on North Korea, and Washington hoped Beijing would use its leverage to gain cooperation from Pyongyang.

During a fireside chat at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Blinken stressed that lack of action from Beijing would push the US to strengthen its defence alliance with South Korea and Japan and “take steps that aren’t directed at China but that China probably won’t like”.

“Everything that North Korea does and China’s inability to help us do something about it, we’ll continue to move things in that direction,” he said.

If China fails to intervene in North Korea, US will take action: Blinken

The US has sent an increasing number of strategic assets to the Korean peninsula following the “Washington Declaration” announced by US President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk-yeol in April.

The declaration established a Nuclear Consultative Group, a nuclear and strategic planning body between Seoul and Washington, that enhances the visibility of US strategic assets around the Korean peninsula.

Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said Blinken’s statement suggested that Beijing’s reluctance to intervene in Pyongyang’s nuclear development had pushed Washington to promote “integrated deterrence” – increasing its military presence in the Asia-Pacific and strengthening defence ties with Seoul and Tokyo.

“For China, it will feel the pressure … The tension created by North Korea in the Asia-Pacific region is the driving force and reason for strengthening integrated deterrence,” Park said.

“But this is inconvenient for China. The US considers the core target of the integrated deterrence to be China, and it is trying to contain them.”

“China was rapidly ‘grouping’ with North Korea, Russia, Iran and other countries … and simultaneously began to regard the denuclearisation of the [Korean] peninsula as not a major element of China’s peninsula policy,” said Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing.

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In-person exchanges between China and North Korea have shown their first signs of resuming since Pyongyang closed its borders at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. China’s new ambassador to North Korea arrived in Pyongyang in March after a two-year vacancy.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was also among a handful of leaders to send Chinese President Xi Jinping a congratulatory message on his 70th birthday in June.

China and North Korea also announced on Monday that a Chinese delegation led by Li Hongzhong, a member of the Politburo, the Communist Party’s 24-member decision-making body, would visit the country on Thursday to take part in celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the Korean war Armistice Agreement on Thursday, which Pyongyang calls the “victory in the great Fatherland Liberation War”.

Li will be one of the highest-ranking Chinese officials to enter the country since Pyongyang closed its borders in 2020.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the invitation showed that both sides attached “great importance to consolidating and developing China-North Korea relations”.

Mao added that the visit would be conducive to promoting regional peace and stability and creating conditions for the “political settlement of the peninsula issue”.

Kang Jun-young, professor of Chinese studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said Washington was pressuring Beijing to take substantial steps regarding North Korea before the hermit kingdom’s nuclear advance became “uncontrollable”.

“What China worries about and hates the most is the introduction of US strategic assets in the Korean peninsula. But for the US, the reason for sending those weapons is North Korean nuclear development,” said Kang.

“So Washington is sending a twofold message that if Beijing takes a proper role to prevent the expansion of the North Korean nuclear issue, its security threats will also be reduced.”

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Last week, the USS Kentucky arrived at a naval base in Busan, South Korea, becoming the first US ballistic missile submarine to stop in the southeastern port city since 1981. The nuclear-powered submarine USS Annapolis also arrived at a naval base in Jeju on Monday.

Kang said the US had started to make stronger demands on China, warning that if Beijing did not try to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, the situation could get out of hand and cause North Korea to escape China’s sphere of influence.

“If North Korea successfully advances its nuclear weapons, it may push the voices calling for Japan and South Korea’s possession of nuclear arms,” said Kang.

“China is in a dilemma. If China leaves North Korea alone, North Korea will further advance its nuclear and missiles programme, and Pyongyang will not listen to what Beijing says.”