[News Analysis] South Korea and China overcome secondary differences to confront NK threat

Posted on : 2017-12-16 16:31 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
The four principles to emerge from the Moon-Xi summit show renewed emphasis on peaceful solutions
Chinese President Xi Jinping reviews an honor guard with South Korean President Moon Jae-in during the official welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People prior to their summit on Dec. 14. (Yonhap News)
Chinese President Xi Jinping reviews an honor guard with South Korean President Moon Jae-in during the official welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People prior to their summit on Dec. 14. (Yonhap News)

South Korea and China face a common threat: the North Korean nuclear program, a black hole that has all of Northeast Asia in its pull. Sharing an understanding of the risk is what enables them to overcome their secondary conflicts and respond in a concerted way. The agreement by Presidents Moon Jae-in and Xi Jinping to patch over differences on the THAAD deployment and follow four major principles of peace and stability on the peninsula – refusing to allow war, achieving denuclearization, resolving the nuclear issue peacefully, and improving inter-Korean relations to address peninsula issues – can be read along these lines.

The four principles aren’t too different from Beijing’s policy approach to date. In the past, it has stated three fundamental aims of its Korean Peninsula policy: denuclearization, peace/stability, and the resolution of issues through dialogue and negotiation.

“During US President Donald Trump’s East Asia tour last month, South Korea and China stressed the importance of a peaceful resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue,” noted Inje University professor Kim Yeon-chul.

“Their two leaders [Moon and Xi] affirmed their shared strategic understanding, and the latest summit made that clear once again,” he said.

Beyond any question of its practicability, the position some are advocating in the US – that it is worth risking war over the North Korean nuclear threat – is having a practical effect on both the political situation in the region and the attitude from Pyongyang. That explains why Moon and Xi reiterated their position that war on the peninsula is absolutely unacceptable.

“The latest summit seems to have been very topic-focused, centering on the North Korean nuclear issue,” observed Sungkyun China Research Center director Lee Hee-ok.

“The two leaders agreed that there isn’t much time left to address issues on the peninsula [resulting from North Korea’s nuclear tests] and that there need to be proactive efforts to achieve some kind of breakthrough,” Lee said.

China has also traditionally supported improved inter-Korean relations as a way of resolving peninsula issues. The intense political situation in Northeast Asia has even ties between Pyongyang and Beijing under strain. Improvements in inter-Korean relations are more important than ever, if only to generate some momentum to pass the threshold of dialogue toward resolving the nuclear issue.

With Xi beginning his second term in office, China has numerous political, diplomatic, and economic reasons to escape the chokehold the nuclear issue has placed on the region. At its root, the THAAD conflict that left South Korea-China relations in the worst state of their 25-year history of bilateral relations was a byproduct of the North’s nuclear program. The nuclear issue has served to disrupt the balance of forces in Northeast Asia, provided a pretext for deterrent efforts against China, and raised the risk of touching off an arms race. On this basis, South Korea and China have been forced to see eye to eye on it.

A senior Blue House official interpreted the latest South Korea-China summit as “a good sign that we’re making a fresh start in bilateral relations.” This official also responded to concerns that the four principles agreed upon by Moon and Xi stand to hurt cooperation with the US, which has made mention of a possible military option against the North.

“The military option is meant to shore up diplomatic and peaceful means. The US is officially in favor a peaceful, diplomatic resolution, and the four principles agreed upon with China are not that different from the US’s position,” the source said.

“This is a simply a matter of South Korea and China fully cooperating and sharing at a time when such cooperation is important.”

For now, the focus is shifting to when and how North Korea alters course after declaring the “completion of state nuclear force.” Two possibilities have been raised. One is that Pyongyang could halt its provocations at their current level, with leader Kim Jong-un using his New Year’s address next year to once again declare nuclear armament “complete” and begin making peace overtures. The international community would seem to have no reason to reject dialogue – especially when it has been so difficult to achieve.

Another possibility is that the North could propose dialogue after first carrying out additional nuclear and missile testing this year to “qualitatively strengthen” its nuclear armaments. In that case, dialogue seems unlikely to come to pass quickly. It also raises the likelihood of Moon facing setbacks in his plan to use the Pyeongchang Olympics next February as an opportunity to clear away the clouds of war looming over the peninsula. This is why careful management of the situation is so crucial over the last two weeks of 2017.

By Jung In-hwan and Noh Ji-won, staff reporters

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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