It is easy to get drawn into the drama of rockets fired over Japan, and massive hydrogen bombs tested by a North Korean regime that likes to threaten mass extinction of its enemies, particularly with the tweeter-in-chief responding in kind. I worry though that the real game is in China, because the suspicion is that China has helped NK develop its technology, and one has to wonder what could drive the Chinese leadership to do such a thing.
I know that the NK regime ostensibly has cut many previous ties with China and that China is hinting in various fora (via HK and at the UN) that it is prepared to put more economic sanctions on the NK regime. So if China is at the same time helping the NK regime with developing its weapons, then it is playing a double game – on the one hand actively helping a near neighbour develop very powerful nuclear technology, and on the other hand presenting a ‘face’ of distress to the outside world.
What are the indications then that China is helping the NK regime? The first indication is that, almost surely, some outside power is helping NK. Consider the indications of that help, as discussed by a couple of Forbes-speaking defence analysts. For one, parts of the weaponry that NK is now displaying apparently are Pakistani/Chinese, in particular the biconal top of the rockets. Second, the trucks from which the launches take place are apparently also Chinese design. Third, the technology needed to master a hydrogen bomb is advanced, and whilst NK has failed for decades to master nuclear technology, progress in the last 24 months has been spectacular. Fourth, its tests with inter-continental ballistic missiles not only shows rapid progress following a long history of failed tests, but seem to require help with monitoring the effects of these tests. Things like how the rocket reacts to the heat of re-entry into orbit have to be measured close to where re-entry takes place, such as via boats in the area.
So, either NK have suddenly found a rich vein of brilliant domestic scientists, or an outside power is really helping them. Pakistan could have helped NK by shipping technology and scientists to them, but it is much easier and far less risky for China given the shared border. Besides, Pakistan is unlikely to defy the US and the rest of the world in helping a rogue state (a lot to lose, little to gain). Similarly, I find the Russia-is-helping story unlikely, particularly since the Russians prefer to be paid to come and help rather than give secret technology away for pittance. The Russian regime won’t trust NK, nor does it have much use for a nuclear NK. The same goes for other medium powers whose names get bandied around, such as Myanmar or Iran: they simply are unlikely to want to run the risk, nor are they in a position to help to that degree.
The more likely story is hence that the Chinese regime is actively helping the NK regime with its rocket and atomic program, concealing this help behind a smokescreen of admonishing statements. It is precisely because they would be afraid of leaks that I doubt the Chinese would use any middle-men.
Though we cannot know for sure, it is important to consider the implications of the possibility that the Chinese regime is actively helping NK with its weapons program. The main question has to be what it says about the Chinese leadership that they are doing this.
One theory is that they want to distract attention away from the South China Sea. Another is that they are trying to use the NK issue as leverage to reduce US power in the region, simply by equipping enemies of the US with dangerous weaponry, forcing the US to weaken itself. Their preferred scenario under that second possibility is probably that the US, Japan, and South Korea keep paying the NK regime extortion money indefinitely, heralding an era of organised nuclear blackmail by small states.
A third theory is that the Chinese leadership wants to prevent the collapse of the NK regime and that they have intel that the position of the 3rd Kim was more precarious than it seemed 2 years ago. Desperate to avoid the visible collapse of a regime that looks like the Chinese regime (ie a collectivist regime), they propped it up.
The first two reasons are less worrying for one may see them as ‘normal’ power-politics. Just as the US has allowed Israel a nuclear bomb, so too would China have its own ‘pets’ in the regions that matter to China.
It is the third reason that worries me the most, ie the possibility that the Chinese regime is propping up the NK regime because it does not want to create a precedence for collectivist regime failure. It would suggest that the Chinese leadership is worried about its own position.
To Western outsiders, the Chinese central leadership in Beijing seems firmly entrenched. It has in the last few years embarked on several programs to consolidate its power, reducing the power of cities and provinces. Inside China, the top of the communist party has cracked down on Internet freedoms, has purged many internal dissenters within the Communist Party via its anti-corruption campaigns, and has centralised taxation and ministerial powers.
Outside China, the top has started an expansionary foreign campaign of building roads and presence in the old Silk Route, has adopted plans to dam many of the rivers that flow to its neighbours but start inside the borders of China, and has developed a military presence in the South China Sea. The top has also supported various (semi-)dictatorial regimes in the world in exchange for economic access (eg Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Myanmar). These activities have brought it in low-level conflict with some of the other regional players (India, Russia, Vietnam, the Philippines) over territories, water, and trading routes.
One can understand all the other foreign adventures as normal expansionary activities of a new superpower flexing its muscles and building a presence in the world, sometimes re-establishing an old Chinese presence, sometimes safeguarding mineral resources, and sometimes just spending lots of surplus foreign cash. But arming an NK regime would be a level up in terms of adventurism. It is almost American in its disregard for consequences. So maybe there is more to the Chinese regime than meets the eye.
I have worked enough years on Chinese issues to have some idea of what I don’t know. And what I don’t know is how secure the current top of the communist party actually is. They seem secure, but the Western media would be the last to know if it was not secure, so perhaps the internal struggle is much more fierce than is visible to outsiders. Perhaps the current President Xi Jiping wants to stay longer than the 10 years that has been the unofficial maximum for any leader after Mao. Perhaps he wants to break the rotation system that has kept the peace inside the Communist Party till now.
One should not make the mistake of looking at Chinese political strife with expectations of nascent democracy, or business-lead reforms, and thus expect internal struggle to come from communist rulers holding out against reformist business elites. That is not how China works: the top of all walks of life in China are in the same network, so business leaders are communist party leaders and vice versa. Democracy is also not a big thing in China. Democracy to the Chinese communist party is like cutting one’s own body in three parts and hoping they work together in a power-balance: a total fantasy. Nothing can break away from the single network and anything worthwhile outside that network is brought into it.
But precisely because they are all part of the same network with no competing independent centres, in-fighting is both exceedingly subtle and exceedingly brutal. When the Chinese fight their internal fights, both the own population and the rest of the world are entirely expendable, for losing the internal fight means total disgrace to the loser. So when it comes to infighting, all options are on the table, including risking nuclear wars between neighbours, just to improve the own standing within the network.
Bo Xilai was the last high-ranking loser of such in-fighting. The 30 million or so dead from the Great Leap Forward around 1960 were really the result from internal strife at the top. Ditto for the Cultural Revolution or the nearly 100 million deaths in the rebellions and famines of the 19th century. Oh yes, when the Chinese political network fractures, the consequences are disastrous. With the Chinese economy and military far more powerful now than it was at the time of Mao or in the 19th century, the danger to the rest of the world of Chinese infighting is concomitantly bigger.
Hence I am worried by what I don’t know: is the struggle for dominance inside the Communist Party in China causing the current top leaders to be reckless when it comes to NK? And if so, are the latest hydrogen tests an embarrassment for the top leaders or are they reaping rewards inside the Party for their stance? We wouldn’t know, but either one of those is a real worry.
What I do know is that the Western media and most Western commentators have no clue about power politics in China. They repeat each other’s bleats, such as the fantasy that the Chinese leadership would care about refugees from North Korea in the case of a conflict, or that it would fear the economic pain of severing economic ties with NK. Both are totally irrelevant to the Chinese leadership, no more than blips: compared to how many Chinese inside China are moved around, the NK refugee possibility is irrelevant, and there is more economic change per year than the entire value of trade with NK. So neither of that would worry them. They think bigger than that.
The only consideration that the Chinese leadership will have regarding NK is internal politics. That is why the possibility that the Chinese leadership is reckless enough to have armed a volatile neighbour with highly sophisticated and deadly atomic weapons fills me with dread: not merely for what the NK regime might do with those weapons, but also for what it says about internal Chinese politics. Compared to either of those, the sanity of the tweeter-in-chief is a minor worry.
Paul Frijters is a Professor of Wellbeing and Economics in London. For many years he was the Research Director of the Rural to Urban Migration in China and Indonesia project, an international cooperation that collected longitudinal data in both countries. He also taught on the economics of China for several years at the University of Queensland.
Comments
8 responses to “PAUL FRIJTERS. What does the North Korean situation say about China?”
Dennis,
I am not commenting on the rationality of the NK leadership. I wouldn’t know. If I had to judge, I would guess Kim-III plans on sticking around a long time, but my newspapers tell me he doesnt abide anyone close to him with any power (he has killed off all competitors), so we are relying on the continued sanity of a 33-year old on his own. No real checks and balances, it would seem. Definitely a worry.
Regarding your other points, I don’t do white-guilt or historical guilt so will let all that stuff pass. I have no problems with the idea that we (the West) want to keep devastating technology to ourselves and out of the hands of others. I would call that selfish, not hypocrite.
I noted in the recent speech by Kevin Rudd on this issue that the Chinese military he knew thought NK was 9/10 a US problem and 1/10 a China problem. I think those Chinese military are not just wrong, but engaging in very dangerous thinking, emphasizing the points in the post.
Geoff,
yes, it is possible they’ve hit a rich vein of brilliant scientists, but jeez have they got to be good. Apparently, the US analysts think they have managed miniaturisation as well. Of course, it is quite possible those US analysts don’t know and are just making it up for the journos, but still, it’s a worry (what is the benefit of the US pretending NK is a threat? None that I can see).
Peter,
you say “China probably is helping NK but I would be very certain that with Russian /Chinese technology, China will have the final control over what is fired and when and where. ( With Chinese success in advancing their world wide economic imperialism the last thing China wants is a war of any sort, never mind a nuclear one).”
I hope so, mate, I really do. But I dont believe the Chinese could control any technology they gave NK. Surely, the only way the Chinese could control any weapons they gave the NK is if they have a whole team in NK that is in charge of these weapons, and those teams would themselves be protected by large Chinese battalions. Even with all the uncertainties of information, I think we would have heard about such troops by now.
Btw, our economies are doing fine in terms of size. We are still many times richer per person than the Chinese. It is the inequalities in the West I worry about, not the size of our economies.
Paul Frijters canvasses various Chinese motives with North Korea concluding with questioning of the stability of Chinese leadership. As a very distant observer from South Western Victoria but a regular business visitor to China, I would make the following points.
1. China and Russia are today running rings around the west in respect to diplomacy, with the one exception of Angela Merkel in Germany. And rather than question the stability of the Chinese leadership we should question that of our own!
2.Both China and Russia are determined to re balance World power and tying the US down in NK makes sense within that objective;- and we are all probably safer with two rather than one “bully in the class room”.
3. China probably is helping NK but I would be very certain that with Russian /Chinese technology, China will have the final control over what is fired and when and where. ( With Chinese success in advancing their world wide economic imperialism the last thing China wants is a war of any sort, never mind a nuclear one).
4. The time and effort the west spends in getting into a lather with issues like NK would be better spent rebuilding our own economies or are we going to thrash around until China owns the lot?
Those observations make sense to me, Peter Small.
This lengthy piece discusses why China has provided the wherewithal for North Korea’s nuclear program, on the basis that it could not have done so on its own. But I wonder whether it doesn’t undermine its own premise, when it says “unless North Korea has discovered a rich vein of brilliant domestic scientists”. We all know how capable Koreans are—look at Chung Ju Yung, who arrived in South Korea from the North, broke, after the Korean War, and created Hyundai! And nothing would be given a higher priority, or carry more prestige, in North Korea than the nuclear/missile programs.
A recent “Wall Street Journal” article describes how a significant number of North Korean students sent abroad have undertaken courses or projects relevant to those programs.
Of course, who can know what are the murky paths of the “dark web” of nuclear technology? There could well be elements of that in North Korea’s successes—those missile-launching vehicles apparently are Chinese—but it would be a mistake to rule out home-grown abilities, I feel.
Thanks Paul
My first problem is with the standard characterisation of the DPRK as crazy, or as a Seoul foreign ministry person said to me as long ago as 1975: “They are not human.”
My next problem is with the inability to see how long the DPRK has been under threat of nuclear strike, or otherwise total obliteration. About 70 years.
Then there is the way others in the axis of evil, either compliant with demands to disarm or not possessing weapons of mass destruction, have been obliterated since 2001.
There is also the long term apartheid situation of the NPT, which leaves the UK’s dependence on the US in the nuclear field AND ITS POSSESSION OF A MASSIVE NUCLEAR FORCE 700 times that of the DPRK somehow in an OK-white-guys basket.
When I first was on the China desk in Canberra in 1970, it was evident that China’s way of dealing with fissiparous tendencies and border tensions is to push, generally gently, outwards. I have read your speculations about China doing the job, supplying the DPRK with this stuff. I also read in the news from Seoul yesterday that they have not sniffed a particle from a test in the north yet. Room for another line of speculation, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYMuJDajujc
I have tended through the whole reform process in China towards uncertainty of stability. Not least because no other large country represents an example to follow. Once upon a time Chinese leaders even looked upon Australia for some examples and systems for civil society.
I’m very ready to think that within the leadership there would be some saying “You’d better keep the Americans far away from that border up there.” To which everyone else at the table would exclaim “Of course, we know that!”
On the economic side – the Trump threats to China – this is sensible:
https://theconversation.com/apple-and-7-eleven-show-why-trumps-threat-to-sever-china-trade-over-korea-rings-hollow-83533
but does not touch the tricky question of China’s USD trillion (roughly same as Japan) holding of US treasury bonds. I suppose with the US debt ceiling lifted and spending on disaster relief that will have to be paid for substantially by China’s lending, ditto ‘the wall’ and the renovation of the nuclear weapon force etc. I wonder if Trump has any idea that the US foreign reserves are just over USD100 billion, compared with China’s USD6,000 billion.
Jennifer,
great question. In normal times, they certainly care about the long-run future of China because that is their joint mantra. But internal politics really trumps everything. When the internal strife heats up, other considerations vanish.
Dennis,
I am indeed unashamedly pro-West. Analysing our own history is important so that we learn from our mistakes. But navel-gazing only goes so far. We should also try to analyse the actions and motivations of others. As such, analysing the internal workings of potential opponents (and allies!) is important. That is not cultural bias, but building strategic awareness.
And giving NK nuclear weapons is a really worrying thing. If it happened, it would have violated the non-proliferation treaties. More worryingly, it is just really really stupid.
What would be comparable from the perspective of the UK government? It would be like giving Ulster Unionists control over nuclear weapons. They are also friends. Would would be comparable for the US? Supplying Quebec with nuclear weapons?
Supplying close neighbours with nuclear weapons is just not a good idea in general. I don’t think any other country has ever done it before. The Chinese seem to have done it twice now, a really worrying development.
If China is ‘destined’ to become the next great world power,
how does the Communist Party
inner circle see
is their responsibility
for the sustainability
of Life on Earth
Presumably they care because that encompasses them too regardless of their political allegiances.
This surreal. Writing from London, capital of a country embarked on misadventure while possessed of perhaps 768 submarine launched nuclear devices each one equivalent to the putative DPRK half-megaton device. Set up on missiles in bunches of eight, (if they are of the US items on a given day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II#Operators
The whole bundle of eight to be delivered at once to separate targets. Where are you Monty Python? “What is it today, Bucharest or Bratislava… no, we can’t do Bratislave eight times, it won’t be there after the first one.”
These weapons are products of a mendicant nuclear weapons relationship that the UK has with the US. Less fidgeting about China-DPRK?
This is wrong:
“The only consideration that the Chinese leadership will have regarding NK is internal politics.”
China and the DPRK are neighbours and allies. There is no likelihood that China would tolerate a US-dominated regime on its border. Neither Russia nor China will cut off oil from the DPRK and precipitate humanitarian crisis and regime collapse.
I can hear a researcher in the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing tapping out a paper on the failure of defence of Belgium in 1940.
I can imagine a tea room at the China Daily chortling over the wikipedia listing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada#Order_of_battle
of the Order of Battle for the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, a tiny country of, then 100,000 people, 1500 miles from Miami, almost as far as the 2000 miles from Pyongyang to Guam (which Pyongyang never said it would attack).
The cultural bias is extraordinary.
The voice of reason continues to be President Moon of South Korea, speaking in Vladivostok on 7 September 2017:
“”I believe Northeast Asian countries working together to successfully develop the Far East may be another way of fundamentally resolving the North Korean nuclear issue,” he said. “If North Korea sees Northeast Asian countries succeed in economic cooperation, the North will realize its participation is in its best interest.”
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2017/09/07/37/0301000000AEN20170907004900315F.html
Even in Seoul conservative media seem to be trying to hide that report. It vanished quickly from the Yonhap main page.