China’s hold on NKorea more myth than reality

Neighbours have shared uneasy alliance since Korean War

BEIJING — At first glance, it seems the perfect solution to the world’s most dangerous standoff: Find a way to get China to use its enormous influence to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear bombs.

The countries, after all, share a long, porous border, several millennia of history and deep ideological roots. Tens, and possibly hundreds, of thousands of Chinese soldiers, including Mao Zedong’s son, died to save North Korea during the Korean War, and China is essentially Pyongyang’s economic lifeline.

The notion of Chinese power over the North — that the countries are as “close as lips and teeth,” according to a cliche recorded in the third century — is so tantalizing that Donald Trump has spent a good part of his young presidency playing it up.

The reality, however, is the complicated, exasperating relationship is less about friendship or political bonds than an uneasy dependency. This matters because if China is not the solution to the nuclear crisis, then outsiders long sold on the idea must recalibrate their efforts as the North approaches a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles.

“The North Koreans have always driven China crazy,”' says John Delury, an expert at Seoul’s Yonsei University, “and, for their part, the North Koreans have always felt betrayed by China.”

THE VIEW FROM CHINA: ‘KIM FAT FAT FAT’ One clue about how Chinese see the North can be seen in two widespread nicknames for the overweight, third-generation North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un: Kim Fatty The Third and Kim Fat Fat Fat.

As China rises as an economic, military and diplomatic heavyweight whose reach extends from the Americas to Asia, many here resent being dragged down by an impoverished, stubborn, Third World dictatorship that allows its people to go hungry while its leader lives in luxury and expands a nuclear arsenal that could lead to war with Washington.

North Korean missile tests hurt trade and tourism and strengthen the U.S. presence in a region China believes it should dominate. North Korean nuclear tests set off earthquakes near the Chinese border and raise fears of radioactive contamination.

This growing disdain is reflected in China’s willingness to permit sanctions at the U.N. Beijing has suspended coal, iron ore, seafood and textiles from the North. Still, nothing China has done offsets its underlying fear too much external pressure could collapse Pyongyang. The nightmare scenario for Beijing is North Korean refugees flooding into its northeast after U.S. and South Korean troops occupy lands that were once considered a buffer zone.

Beijing has also argued it has less power over North Korea than people think. Some observers question whether China could force a change in the North, short of military intervention, even if it wanted to.

North Korea relies on China for most of its oil, and outsiders have long argued that the best way to cripple the North’s economy and force it to submit would be to persuade Beijing to cut that flow. But even this may not work. North Korea gets its oil from China out of convenience, not necessity, according to Pierre Noel, an energy security specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank .

“Would it be good news for North Korea if the oil stopped flowing? No. Is it likely to cripple the economy and force the government to change course on their foremost strategic priority? No. There are ample hydrocarbons in North Korea to substitute for those it imports from China.” VIEW FROM THE NORTH: ‘PROFOUND MISTRUST’ It can be argued the North Korea-China relationship never really recovered from Beijing’s decision in 1992 to establish diplomatic relations with Seoul.

But a big part of North Korea’s “profound sense of mistrust” and “long-term effort to resist China’s influence” stems from the 1950-53 Korean War, according to James Person, a Korea expert at the Wilson Center think-tank in Washington. The war is often seen as the backbone of the countries’ alliance, he said, but the North blamed the failure to conquer the South on Beijing, which had seized control of field operations after the near-annihilation of North Korean forces.

In the 1970s, with North Korea pushing the United States for a peace treaty to replace the Korean War cease-fire that continues today, Washington chose to work through China.

By so doing, U.S. officials failed to see the limits of Chinese influence in the North, Person wrote last month on the 38 North website.

“Yet, nearly four decades later, asking China to solve the North Korean problem remains Washington’s default policy for dealing with Pyongyang.” This, he said, is “a recipe for continued failure.”