China has unremittingly promoted dialogues and contacts between the United States and the DPRK. On February 29, the DPRK signed an agreement with the United States, agreeing to suspend long-range missile launches in return for food aid from the United States.

The agreement was breached, however, on April 12, 2012 with the DPRK’s launch of a satellite. When on April 16 the UN Security Council issued the Chairman’s statement condemning the DPRK for this act, China voted in support, expressing strong dissatisfaction with the DPRK’s flip-flop behavior.

In the post-Kim Jong Il era, Beijing’s DPRK policy mainly focuses on three aspects. First, it has encouraged the DPRK’s policy to develop economy, supported Kim Jong Un’s slogan that “bullets and rice are equally important” and pushed the DPRK to follow China’s reform and opening-up model. To achieve this, China has set up training bases in such northeastern cities as Changchun, Dalian, Shen-yang and Dandong to train North Korean officials. Chinese entrepreneurs are also interested in doing business in the DPRK.

Second, China has promoted contacts and dialogues among the DPRK, the ROK and the United States while at the same time continuing to persuade the DPRK not to take any provocative actions such as conducting nuclear tests. China is thus able to exert influence on the DPRK by linking political and economic cooperation with the latter’s non-provocative policies.

Third, China has monitored the US-Japan-ROK alliance’s policies toward the DPRK in the event that they might disrupt stability in the DPRK during and after the leadership transition.

On February 12, the DPRK challenged the international community by conducting a nuclear test. This suggests that it is difficult to separate the North Korea nuclear issue from the country’s other problems.

Unless the Kim Jong Un administration reforms its domestic institutions, abandons its long-held Seongun (military first) policy and emerges from isolation, it will be difficult to achieve any breakthrough in resolving the nuclear issue.

China alone is not able to make the DPRK reform. Efforts from other parties such as the United States, Japan, the ROK and Russia, are also needed.

Possible Solutions

Currently, the UN Security Council is discussing new sanctions against the DPRK as a means to prevent escalation of the DPRK nuclear threat. It is nevertheless doubtful that sanctions or pressure will effectively and rapidly resolve the North Korea nuclear issue.

The international community has been imposing sanctions and pressure on the DPRK for several decades, yet the security situation on the Korean Peninsula remains grave. China is willing to join the international community in punishing the DPRK for its intransigence. But the international community should also work with China in finding ways of engaging the DPRK and pushing it to change from within. This is the only way of solving the North Korea issue without direct military conflicts that endanger the stability and prosperity of Northeast Asia.

The DPRK’s domestic situation and Kim Jong Un’s domestic and foreign policies constitute the biggest uncertainties with respect to the Korean Peninsula.

To achieve the goal of rejuvenating its economy and opening to the world, the DPRK should carry out reforms to its domestic system and improve relations with the ROK, the United States and Japan.

Only after it has demonstrated sincere determination to abandon nuclear weapons can the DPRK’s negotiation and contacts with other countries be resumed and a constructive external environment created for its internal development.

The DPRK will only create more insecurity for itself by insisting on forcing the international community to accept its nuclear weapons through nuclear confrontation.

There are two possibilities for the DPRK’s future. One is that it might institute limited reform and opening-up while possessing nuclear weapons but continue to be isolated and pressured by the international community. Tension on the Korean Peninsula will hence persist.

The other possibility is that the DPRK, in the process of negotiating for denuclearization, will improve the international environment, speed up institutional reform and opening-up and bring about security and development.

In either case, denuclearization is most likely to be an outcome rather than a prerequisite of the DPRK’s reform.