Is sudden US-North Korea rapport possible?

By Ren Weidong Source:Global Times Published: 2013-3-3 18:43:01

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Recently, North Korea's third nuclear test caused wide uproar. North Korea has an uncanny ability to choose the most drastic way to challenge great powers, as well as the international order they lead and maintain. At the same time, the country is able to increasingly lift its own capability to tackle external threats.

At present, global strategic conditions do not allow the US to open another front on the Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, North Korea has geopolitically subtle effects. The Korean War (1950-53) ended at the 38th parallel in the 20th century, because both China and the US were unable to continue the fight and had achieved a strategic balance there. China kept the US at a distance, while Washington drove a wedge on the peninsula.

Therefore, in order to expand power in East Asia based on this toehold, especially in exercising a new Cold War rather than direct conflict against China, the US won't allow reunification of the peninsula. Instead, it will maintain North Korea's current government to keep opposition and confrontation between the two Koreas.

North Korea clearly perceives US intentions. It doesn't have to worry about its survival, but it hopes to shake off outside control for complete independence and peaceful development. 

Certainly, the US doesn't want to see North Korea armed, but it doesn't object to using such armaments for more profits, either. The biggest strategic interest that the US has is to wreck China-North Korea ties, so that North Korea can serve as a strategic front in new Cold War against China. That is the strategic significance of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

On North Korea's third nuclear test, the US created public panic, deployed warships to South Korea for naval exercises, and even threatened to preemptively launch military strikes on North Korea. All its moves are targeted at China.

The US believes that China won't give up overall Sino-US relations, since China favors stability. Washington seeks to make China lose its composure through creating tensions in regional situations and Sino-US relations.

In controlling North Korea under the current order, the US passes the buck to China, so that China and North Korea may have differences and even confrontations. For this purpose, US officials and media have repeatedly emphasized that China exerts the most influence on North Korea.

At the moment, North Korea's strategic trend has developed into a key stage, when the US will surely use a "carrot and stick" approach to alienate North Korea from China.

Although North Korea regularly denounces the US, it is anxious for improvement in North Korea-US relations as well, because it is the US, rather than China, that has the biggest effects on the North's security and development.

It is predictable that North Korea-US relations may suddenly improve when China is worrying about nuclear test. We must be sober about that.

North Korea increasingly strengthens itself by alternating tensions and peaceful gestures, and raises its negotiating position with the US.

During the process, if China wants to avoid an entirely passive position, it ought not to tolerate the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue as it stands.

To completely and fully realize denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, all the foreign troops must be withdrawn. Also, external interference should be kept out to create conditions for peaceful reunification of the peninsula.

The most important US strategy in the Asia-Pacific region is to establish a most extensive international united front against China, in which North Korea is a component.

Besides, several countries hope to make some deals. Russia is one of them. Through limited Russia-US cooperation on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Russia attempts to relieve strategic pressure from Europe.

In face of seemingly complicated tensions, China has reasonable ground to remain calm.

Through leaving the nuclear issue to the two sides, China can gain advantages without interference. In this way, China will be able to maintain and develop Sino-North Korean cooperation, thus seizing the initiative in the evolution of the strategic regional geometry.

The author is an associate research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn



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