The four countries on the northern fringe of Asia went their separate ways after the end of the Cold War, but strengthening Sino-Russian relations and what may be the looming endgame in North Korea’s strategy of threats and isolation are signs that we now need to think about this area also through its connections. Mongolia still is rather aloof in its foreign policy, but geography leaves it no escape from dynamics particular to the Northern Tier. South Korea (outside of our conception of the tier) has struggled to prevent a revival of the Northern Tier, but its leverage is proving limited. Looking back to what existed in an earlier incarnation of the Northern Tier and focusing on Chinese and Russian views of North Korea, we are able to explore the implications of increasingly close Sino-Russian relations. Tensions with North Korea have grown more serious after its provocative moves throughout 2016, but that does not mean that we should dismiss the strategic reasoning in 2014–15 about how China and Russia have been approaching not only the immediate challenge coming from the North, but, more significantly, where they would like it to head from here.
There was a Northern Tier until the end of the Cold War. For the decade after 1949, it was unambiguously the Red Bloc of the Soviet Union, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. Stalin and Mao chose to support Kim Il-sung’s plan to unify the peninsula by force, making this the front line in the Cold War. The Korean War reflected thinking that the “east wind prevails over the west wind.” Dressing the attack on South Korea in terms of the end justifies the means (lies about who started the war, who was fighting in it, and what was taking place), Soviet and Chinese commentaries set a pattern for narratives on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia that remained highly distorted during the “cold peace” through the 1980s. They refused even to recognize North Korea’s continued belligerence destabilizing the peninsula. The defensive character of the US alliance with Tokyo—no thought being given to any sort of aggressive behavior—was finally acknowledged in China after it found common cause against the Soviet Union. Yet, its support for North Korea remained steadfast, as did Moscow’s. The Sino-Soviet split did not mean the end of shared (competitive) support for North Korea and its role in opposing US alliances. In this sense, the Northern Tier survived until the early 1990s, leaving a lasting legacy.
Northeast Asia was an unlikely focus of great power maneuvering following the end of the Cold War. There were plans for turning it into the centerpiece of great power coordination for a new regional and world order: multilateral energy cooperation in the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia, cross-border regionalism around the Sea of Japan, and, above all, collective security assurances to steer North Korea into a regional framework conducive to reduced tensions on the Korean Peninsula but also to great power trust. That Pyongyang would balk at such plans—demilitarization, loss of its ability to play one great power against another, reforms that threatened to shake the legitimacy of a hermit dictatorship afraid to unseal its chamber of horrors, and a Tumen River development project opening the country to transit movement—should have come as no surprise. More unexpectedly, strategies to use North Korea to rekindle splits between great powers rather than to facilitate trust as well as cooperation defied hopes for putting the Cold War in the past. While no country’s blueprint for the future of North Korea was realistic, its revival as the nexus of contestation was the predictable outcome of great power dynamics from the 1990s.
The US posture toward North Korea has repeatedly been perceived in Beijing and Moscow as overriding potential bilateral concerns. This was the case for Beijing in 2003 when it feared that the “axis of evil” speech and the invasion of Iraq would be a prelude to a push for regime change in North Korea, and it was true again in the fall of 2005 when unilateral US sanctions against Banco Delta Asia revived the charge that regime change was being aggressively pushed.1 Only when North Korea defied both China and Russia in late 2006 by brazenly testing both a long-range missile and a nuclear weapon did Beijing pressure Pyongyang, resulting in the February 2007 Joint Agreement. Yet, after similar tests in the spring of 2009, Beijing’s response was different, encapsulated in its three euphemisms: “maintaining domestic stability in North Korea, peace on the Korean Peninsula, and social stability in China.” These were invoked in 2009–10 for “enabling North Korea’s misdeeds,” before China in late 2010 may have restrained the North from military retaliation against planned South Korean military exercises, and they are used to justify putting blame on US aggressiveness more than North Korea’s belligerence and overlooking China’s own passivity, acquiescence, or enablement of the North Korean regime’s conduct.2
The Chinese Narrative on North Korea in the 2010s
Discordant voices were heard in 2004 when a journal was closed for its coverage, in 2006 and 2013 after nuclear tests by North Korea, and occasionally at other times as well. Yet, the prevailing tone was in sharp contrast to what these voices had to say. In 2002–03, when Pyongyang broke away from the IAEA regime set by the Joint Agreement, again in 2008–09, when it abandoned the Agreed Framework set by the Six-Party Talks, in 2010, when North Korea twice attacked South Korea, and finally in 2014–15, when many thought China’s dissatisfaction with Kim Jong-un meant a sharp shift in policy, Chinese publications overwhelmingly reaffirmed a narrative of little comfort to those arguing for 5 vs. 1 or for reunification led by South Korea.
The Special Forum article in June 2015 of Cheng Xiaohe characterizes China’s stance toward the Korean Peninsula as a “drawn-out competition,” in which China is taking an increasing interest to the point it may tip the balance on the peninsula, which has been tilting toward South Korea. Treating North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a means to reverse the trend and South Korea’s prospect of achieving unification on its own terms as very unlikely, Cheng calls for resuming the Six-Party Talks as a way to change North Korea’s calculus. His perspective draws equivalence between the North and the South, treats the standoff as a struggle over the security interests of the great powers, and assumes that balance between North and South and among the great powers is the pathway to unification. To persist in South Korea’s current approach to unification as a “bonanza” is an illusion, he adds, neglecting only to note directly that China does not view this outcome as in its interest. Without praising the North’s nuclear program, Cheng credits it with helping Pyongyang turn the tables in its competition with Seoul. Thus, it makes China’s goal of pursuing a path to reunification based on equality easier. He argues that whether Seoul can go forward with efforts aimed at reunification depends heavily on China’s cooperation, which, in turn, depends on Seoul not supporting the US rebalance targeted against China.
The obvious conclusion is that Seoul faces a zero-sum great power clash, and its ties to Pyongyang, as influenced by Beijing, depend on how it balances the two powers. Deterrence and trust building are at odds. China can help with the latter, but efforts to bolster the former that play into the US rebalancing will not win China’s support.
Cheng’s article in English is but the tip of the iceberg of Chinese writings insisting that Seoul must abandon its current strategy and change course for reunification. Even if Sino-DPRK ties are strained, Beijing sees an alignment versus US alliances.
China appears to be seeking regime reorientation as the path to domestic stability in North Korea. This means its readiness to work with China on diplomacy, economic reform, and regime revitalization. China also seems to be in pursuit of peace on the peninsula through a balance of North and South security concerns with input from China and other powers, but there is reason to expect that China’s input will carry the greatest weight, given its likely impact on the North and the South’s awareness that China has far more levers to shape the process than any other country. Finally, success as the host of the reconvened Six-Party Talks and the protector of the North would give a boost to the legitimacy and stability of the Communist Party in China. In the background, the Sino-Russian partnership in August 2015 conducting military exercises at sea near the Korean Peninsula is a reminder of their bilateral interests.
The Russian Narrative on North Korea in the 2010s
The Russian narrative on the Korean Peninsula closely parallels the rhetoric found in China. In the December 2014, Special Forum Rozman analyzed the Russian “turn to the East,” emphasizing China’s central role, but, increasingly, North Korea’s salience is also being emphasized. Blaming the United States for trying to destroy the regime in North Korea while also finding merit in the argument that the September 19, 2005 agreement was violated by the United States, South Korea, and Japan, provoking North Korea to resume its nuclear activity, Valerii Denisov was paraphrased in The Asan Forum as suggesting that the real danger to peace in the region comes from the US-ROK alliance, not North Korea. He justifies Russia’s warming to North Korea, mentioning the souring of Sino-North Korean relations without putting much blame on either party. The burden is placed on Washington and Seoul to win the confidence of Pyongyang, leading to the resumption of the Six-Party Talks, notably of the 5th working group headed by Russia to address a regional security framework, which Denisov puts foremost in his analysis of what is needed to resolve the crisis.
A strong China and a close Sino-Russian partnership are decisive factors in reaching the kind of arrangement Denisov, and most other Russian writers on the peninsula are seeking. They focus on reassuring North Korea, bolstering it, transforming the US-ROK alliance, and developing a regional economic program for a north-south corridor from Russia through South Korea. In light of the expected hesitation of Seoul to embrace this agenda, Russians lean more to pressure than persuasion. Strengthening bilateral ties to North Korea both makes the North a more viable force and puts Russia in a less marginal position. Behind the facade of cooperative Russo-ROK relations—Park Geun-hye’s Eurasian Initiative was still being pursued—Park offended Putin by not attending the 2014 Sochi Olympics ceremonies and the May 9, 2015 celebration of the 70th anniversary of victory on Red Square. Relations have cooled, as high officials visit less often. Yet, discretely Seoul strives to sustain relations, recognizing that it needs Russia to manage North Korea. As long as Russia affirms its support for the non-proliferation treaty and denuclearization of North Korea and suspicions are not confirmed that it is, through official or unofficial ties, assisting the North’s missile programs, Seoul is likely to avoid giving further offense. In these circumstances, Russia has considerable room to boost ties with Pyongyang, using the possibility of closer military ties and arms transfers as a kind of blackmail.
Georgy Toloraya noted in his June 11, 2015 paper for the Korean Economic Institute that Russia “is increasingly less interested in a momentous Korean unification under the ROK’s guidance which would result in a sudden shift of balance of power in the region.”3 He added that the nuclear issue is less urgent now. What really matters are security guarantees to North Korea and for Washington and Seoul to offer those, the regime must be more resilient. Russian support for economic projects and appeals for Seoul to lift sanctions and back trilateral projects serve that end. Toloraya notes neither Moscow nor Pyongyang would accept any deterioration in the strategic balance, which leaves Seoul in the position of no prospects for unification unless it defies Washington, puts aside denuclearization for the distant future, and engages Pyongyang as well as Moscow and Beijing on a massive economic program treated as the foundation of reconciliation, while simultaneously refocusing away from the US alliance and security ties with Japan in order to forge the kind of power balance in Northeast Asia conducive to regional diplomacy and regime reassurance.
Russia could be marginalized by China and wants to capitalize on arguments aimed at Pyongyang and Seoul that the only realistic alternative to China’s dominance is a triangular arrangement with it that accommodates China, to a degree. Yet, on both the meaning of peace and stability and the reinforcement of the Pyongyang regime, Moscow is close to Beijing in its posture, albeit with more support for the status quo in the regime and wariness about reform, which could play into Beijing’s strategy. It is no less obsessed with preventing a blow to legitimacy at home from a new “color revolution.” Moscow and Beijing differ somewhat, but their overlap is substantial.
The Sino-Russian-North Korean Triangle
Over the past decade, Chinese and Russian sources have rarely had a critical word to say about each other’s approach to the crisis and to talks over North Korea. There is silence also about the triangular implications of their overlapping logic on both the nature of the problem and the steps needed to address it. This serves to conceal prospects for a northern triangle as well as points of contention that are anticipated.
After bolstering Pyongyang to face Seoul from strength and supporting its regional role in a competition among great powers, Moscow and Beijing have reason to cast doubt on each other’s long-term intentions. Russian sources are prone to describe an ideal partnership of their country and a united Korea, as if Russia is the natural partner and China may have in mind some sort of sinocentric arrangement about which Koreans should be wary. They envision a north-south corridor, strengthening the Trans-Siberian railway and making Busan the terminus, bypassing the east-west corridor through China. Filling the void somewhat left by China’s tougher posture toward North Korea in 2014, Russia appeared to be communicating to Kim Jong-un that it is an alternative that allows him to avoid the heavy dependence on China that he fears. In these respects, it is not simply reinforcing China’s approach to the North.
Chinese sources often appear to overlook Russia’s role on the peninsula. China has the stronger presence in North Korea. Its transportation corridors are far ahead of Russia’s with access to much greater funding, independent of what Seoul decides to support. The Korean Peninsula is a symbol in China of Tsarist Russia’s imperialist conduct in the 1890s–1900s. Russia situates Korea in the postwar order from 1945 to justify its approach, but China has two millennia of sinocentric reasoning to back its preferred outcome. While coordination is more doubtful in fast-changing circumstances than in today’s slow-moving efforts just to restart diplomacy with North Korea, this does not mean that divergent national interests are likely to negate the prospects for triangularity. As long as unification is perceived as an ideological threat (one more “color revolution”); a historical travesty (reversing the outcome of 1945 if not the harmonious order prior to Western imperialism), a civilizational defeat (the Western approach to democracy and human rights would be boosted); and a loss of equilibrium in the regional balance of power (even a neutral Korea would not be trusted to remain so), China and Russia will agree on supporting North Korea as a matter of national identity and national interest. Given the shared obsession with identity gaps with the West, above all the United States, there is little reason to anticipate that Sino-Russian differences will take priority.
In 2015, Kim Jong-un refused to take the diplomatic track, preferring unilaterally to boost his military might and threaten other states. The focus on finding a path for restarting the Six-Party Talks centered on coordinating to put denuclearization in the forefront; however, negotiations would proceed once the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement was reaffirmed. South Korea had turned its focus to reunification led by it, asking for the support of others. China found it useful to emphasize cooperation with South Korea and the United States, aware that no issue serves this purpose better than the North’s nukes. Russia too, however much it views the world through the prism of a new cold war, repeated its support for the non-proliferation treaty. All of these circumstances had distracted attention from the way China and Russia are looking at North Korea as a factor in regional security, a reunification process on the peninsula, and the construction of national identity to serve regime legitimation.
Contents of This Volume
In the first part, we focus on Sino-Russian relations, looking at Russia’s “turn to the East,” and divergent views (...