What does China think of North Korea and its assistance to Russia?
Analysing the difference in attitude towards North Korea between the political party and people of China
This article is part of a new format of articles – Investigators – on Observing China which analyse the domestic and foreign policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This Investigator is by Charles Parton OBE, Chief Advisor to the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy. It focuses on the diverging interests of the Chinese government and the Chinese people in relation to North Korea.
The Investigator | No. 02/2024
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) becomes irate when others draw a distinction between it and the Chinese people. Melting that distinction allows the party to portray those who criticise its actions and values as an attack against the Chinese people, and, worse, one based on racism.
The news that Kim Jung-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, has sent over 10,000 mercenaries to help the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is a reminder that relations between Beijing and Pyongyang are a fine illustration of how CCP interests differ from those of China and the Chinese people.
CCP aims on the Korean peninsula can be summed up as:
Avoiding regime instability or collapse in North Korea. These would lead to refugees flooding into northeast China, a region already suffering economically. The CCP fears that the resulting instability might lead to protests which in turn could threaten its hold on power.
Preventing Korean re-unification in which South Korea absorbs North Korea. The CCP fears that this would bring American troops to its own border. Even if the United States (US) withdrew its troops, the CCP does not want to share a border with a free and open country, a worrying contrast.
Keeping the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. While too late in the case of North Korea, the CCP does not want South Korea to go nuclear.
Helping North Korea to become a smaller version of the CCP’s authoritarian self: modernised, amenable and pliable.
The CCP is also tethered to its version of history. Part of its legitimacy for holding on to power was – and still is – based upon its confection that it defeated the forces of imperialism and colonialism, not least in its fraternal struggle during the Korean War. North Korea remains the PRC only formal ally, as ‘close as lips and teeth’ in the party’s phrase.
It is a different picture for the Chinese people. They too would not welcome refugees flooding the northeast. But that danger would soon pass if the PRC, the US, South Korea, Japan and others moved quickly and in concert to put a unified Korea back on its feet.
And the benefits would flow. In time, stability and the presence of a vibrant unified Korea next door would help the depressed economy of northeastern China. The US would withdraw its troops – President Trump, if still in power, would be only too happy to oblige – and the peninsula would be free of nuclear weapons. Neither Korea nor Japan would see a need to develop them, a restraint which currently looks shaky.
Moreover, regime change would remove a worry which must keep even the CCP awake: Kim’s regime carries out underground nuclear tests at Mount Mantap, which has already suffered internal collapses. Future tests might cause a Chernobyl type disaster – at a distance of only 60 miles from the Chinese border.
Earlier decades of CCP support and unwillingness to restrain the Kim family have made any change of policy very difficult. North Korea now possess nuclear weapons. But domestically, for the CCP to abandon its current course and aims, and to align itself with the interests of the Chinese people over Korea would be to undermine its own narrative of power and omnipotence – to say nothing of committing the mortal sin of ‘historical nihilism’ (denying its own version of history). However much the CCP and Kim dislike each other, they are stuck in their unholy alliance.
The support of Xi Jinping, Secretary General of the CCP, for Russia’s invasion also illustrates the gap between the CCP and the Chinese people. The party aims to undermine western economic systems and values by supporting ‘the enemy of my enemy’. For the Chinese people, it harms the PRC’s economic relations, particularly with Europe, and contributes to economic decoupling.
The CCP’s long term interests in the Korean peninsula prevent it from expressing forceful opposition to Russia’s new dalliance with North Korea. If Ukrainian sources are to be believed, Kim receives US$20,000 per man per month and US$100,000 for any death in action (for 10,000 soldiers that is a muscular US$240 million a year without casualties or US$1 billion if the Ukrainians kill them all). If that means that Kim’s regime is less reliant on Chinese subsidies, or that Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, is less likely to lose the war, then that may be some small relief for Xi. Other likely elements of the Russian – North Korea deal would be more worrying for him, for example any transfer of military or nuclear weapons technology.
The CCP may be unhappy at many aspects of North Korea behaviour, but it has allowed its interests to supplant those of the Chinese people. The party must continue to live with the consequences of that historical choice. So, sadly, must the Chinese people.
Charles Parton OBE is Chief Advisor to the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy.
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