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By Park Min-hee

Beijing Correspondent

“Stable North Korea Relationship Most Advantageous to China.”

This was the title of an editorial on Chinese edition published by the Chinese state-run “Global Times” newspaper on Aug. 30, when news of a summit meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korean National Defence Commission Chairman Kim Jong-il was made public. The same newspaper went on to publish an editorial on Aug. 31, which stated that the world should encourage North Korea to initiate reform and openness policies. The editorial emphasized that the liberalization and opening up in North Korea was advantageous for strategically easing tension in Northeast Asia, and was an important key to resolving the state of conflict on the Korean peninsula.

This shows us in what direction China, which has put in the effort to receive Kim Jong-il again just four months after his previous visit and sent Hu up to Changchun for a summit meeting with him, wants to take its relationship with North Korea. At the summit, Hu suggested continued exchange of high-level personnel, cooperation in economics and commerce and strategic strengthening of communication as three principal projects in Chinese-North Korean relations.

At a time when the security environment is changing due to heightened tension on the Korean peninsula following the Cheonan incident and worsening relations between China and the United States, China seems to want to use the reinforced North Korean relationship resulting from Kim’s visit as a “strategic asset.”

It appears that China, which has changed its Cold-War era special friendship with North Korea into “a normal international relationship,” has decided to increase its influence in North Korea, which is stuck between a rock and a hard place due to issues like heightened tension on the peninsula, economic crisis, leadership succession and Kim Jong-il’s deteriorating health, by being “specially” magnanimous toward North Korea again.

The Global Times stressed that North Korea was “the most active variable” in Northeast Asia and that, by maintaining a stable relationship with North Korea, Chinese could take even more of a leading stance in various changing circumstances.

One diplomatic source in Beijing said that China believed that strengthening its relationship with North Korea in its current state of difficulty would lead to more influence over North Korea and become an important card in U.S-Chinese relations too. One source interpreted that China’s calculation was that it had to maintain a good relationship with North Korea in order to maintain influence in case of any sudden change in North Korea.

It is worth noting that at this summit conference Hu’s demands that North Korea reform and open up were much more direct and higher in tone than at the North Korea-China summit of May earlier this year.

Hu said, “Economic development did require efforts using the country’s own strength, but that external cooperation was also necessary. This was a route that must inevitably be taken in order to accelerate national development.”

In other words, North Korea must no longer maintain a closed economy.

Hu also suggested the principals of “Chinese-style reform and openness” that include “government leadership, orientation toward businesses, market activity and common interest.” This is a much more specific form of urging than Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s expression of hope that China would introduce its reform and opening up and its experience in construction to North Korea, when Kim visited China in May this year.

Some interpret this summit meeting has having seen China approve the hereditary transfer of power from Kim Jong-il to Kim Jong-un, the third generation of the Kim dynasty, but it appears that China’s stance on this issue is still considerably removed from that of North Korea.

An authentic source of information on North Korean-Chinese relations offered the interpretation that China did not want to appear in a feudalistic light before international society by installing a successor in another country, and that since North Korea’s succession issue was a domestic affair, it would not interfere but only go so far as to overlook the issue for the sake of North Korea’s stability.

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