Thinking the unthinkable in China: Abandoning North Korea
BEIJING: North Korea’s nuclear antics have rattled its alliance with China to the point that Beijing is allowing the previously unthinkable to be discussed: Is it time to prepare for the renegade regime’s collapse?
While China’s official goal is to bring Washington and Pyongyang to the negotiating table, it is also permitting once taboo debate on contingencies in case war breaks out in the isolated nation across its northeast border.
Observers say the public debate might be a tactic to try and coerce Pyongyang into cooling its weapons programme, with its nuclear and missile tests visibly angering Beijing, which has backed tough new United Nations sanctions on the country.
But it may also indicate growing calls to overhaul its relationship with the North, a longterm ally that it defended during the 195053 Korean War and has a mutual defence pact with.
Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, raised eyebrows earlier in September when he published an article entitled: “Time to prepare for the worst in North Korea”.
The paper was published in English in East Asia Forum, a website of the Australian National University, but it is unlikely that he could have released it without the approval of Chinese authorities.
Jia urged Beijing to start discussing contingency plans with the United States and South Korea — talks that the two nations have sought in the past but China has resisted for fear of upsetting Pyongyang.
“When war becomes a real possibility, China must be prepared. And, with this in mind, China must be more willing to consider talks with concerned countries on contingency plans,” Jia wrote.
Beijing, he said, could discuss who would control North Korea’s nuclear arsenal — either the United States or China.
To prevent a massive flow of refugees across the border, China could send its army to North Korea to create a ‘safety zone’, Jia said.
Another touchy issue would be who would “restore domestic order in North Korea in the event of a crisis”. China, he said, would object to letting US soldiers cross the 38th parallel into North Korea.
An August editorial in state-run nationalist tabloid Global Times said China should remain neutral if North Korea launches missiles against the US and Washington retaliated, and only intervene if the US and South Korea tried to overthrow the Pyongyang regime.
Discussions about the end of the North’s regime could be aimed at scaring Kim Jong-Un and pleasing Trump before the US leader’s trip to Beijing in November, a Western diplomat said. — AFP