Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

It is possible to argue that the North Korean nuclear test came despite China’s objections; but the more likely explanation is that Beijing is continuing to pull its punches when it comes to Pyongyang.  And if this more likely explanation is correct, then it provides one more powerful example of worrying misjudgement by China’s leadership.

As we pointed out last week, the latest figures show the extent to which China now dominates North Korea’s external trade.  Two-way trade in 2012 was up 7% at a record $6bn.  Chinese exports were up 11.6% at $3.5bn while imports were up 1% at $2.5bn.  Around 60% of China’s imports from North Korea is accounted for by natural resources such as iron ore and anthracite.  In turn, North Korea imported $748m of oil from China in the first 11 months of 2012.

This latter point is particularly important, as we emphasized in a Special Alert issued to Courcy Intelligence Service members yesterday.  China could apply real pressure to Pyongyang by cutting supplies of fuel.  While cutting food aid would hurt the poorest in North Korea’s society without seriously inconveniencing the ruling elite, cutting fuel would affect the decision makers much more quickly.

But China has chosen not to apply this level of pressure, and Pyongyang has gone ahead with its third nuclear test, following earlier ones in 2006 and 2009.  As few were taken by surprise by the test, and certainly not Beijing, the working assumption must be that China has acquiesced in this North Korean escalation.

For us the most worrying thing about this episode is less that North Korea now has a more effective nuclear deterrent than what it says about China’s judgement, as we can see no circumstances in which this development is beneficial to China.  It is a commonplace in Western geopolitical analysis that China favours maintaining the status quo in northeast Asia because North Korea provides a buffer against the United States.  But allowing North Korea to continue with its nuclear-weapons programme is not necessary for maintaining the status quo.  Moreover, at least three negative consequences, from China’s point of view, flow from North Korea’s developing nuclear programme.

The first is that even if North Korea’s nuclear capability is all-but unusable (and history suggests that nuclear weapons cannot, or will not, be used against any adversary which can retaliate in kind), it cannot be ignored by South Korea.  And that the effect of this will be destabilizing was made clear by Seoul even before the test.

Speaking on 12 February, South Korea’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jung Seung-jo, said that Seoul was ready to make a “pre-emptive strike”.  He said: “If [the North] shows a clear intent to use a nuclear weapon, it is better to get rid of it and go on a war rather than being attacked.”  The key concern about General Jung’s comment is his idea that North Korea’s “clear intent” can somehow be discerned.  The potential for misjudgement, with self-fulfilling escalation from both sides, is obvious.

The second negative consequence will be with Japan.  Under its new hawkish prime minister, Shinzo Abe, Tokyo is already moving towards the lifting of its self-imposed ban on participating in collective self-defence.  The escalating dispute with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands probably provides Tokyo with sufficient reason to move away from its strictly pacifist constitution and to rearm, but clear belligerence from Pyongyang provides perfect cover and can only accelerate the process.

On 8 February, less than a week before the North Korean nuclear test, Abe had began new discussions on the question of collective self-defence.  Ahead of a meeting of the panel charged with looking at the issue, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said: “In light of the changing security environment surrounding our country, the panel will discuss what Japan’s appropriate response should be.”

The starting point of the panel’s discussions is a report produced in June 2008 but which had been instigated during Abe’s previous spell as prime minister from 2006-2007.  That report proposed that Japan should use its missile defence system to help defend the US from ballistic missile attack, and that the Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) should be allowed to defend US vessels under attack.  Those Japanese policymakers who are opposed to these suggestions are in a weaker position today than they were before the third North Korean nuclear test.

Thirdly, the North Korean escalation can only reinforce the US’s commitment to its strategic ‘pivot’ towards Asia, which Beijing sees as evidence that the US is pursuing a ‘contain China’ policy.

Few now doubt that a military conflict between Japan and China could be sparked inadvertently.  And even fewer now doubt how quickly, and how far, an unintended incident on the Korean Peninsula could escalate.  Yet even with all these negatives, China still apparently sees benefit in allowing North Korea to pursue its nuclear weapons programme.  Similar misjudgements can be seen in Beijing’s recent behaviour in escalating tension in the East and South China Seas, even if that can be more readily explained by China’s visceral fear of conceding territory, however tenuous its claim.

Perhaps some might welcome these misjudgements as betraying the underlying weakness of China as a serious long-term challenge to the West.  But an adversary that finds it difficult to calculate where its own best interests lie is an unpredictable adversary, and an unpredicatable adversary is a more dangerous adversary.  Beyond that, it is clear that China remains very far from becoming the “responsible stakeholder” so much desired by certain US policymakers.  JdeC.

NOTE: An interesting aspect of the North Korean nuclear test, say sources in Seoul, is the way in which it is being used to boost the image of the country’s relatively new leader, Kim Jong-un.  Developing a personality cult has been a feature of all North Korean leaders, but the previous two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 were not specifically used for this purpose by Kim’s father Kim Jong-il.

Kim Jong-un has been in power for only just over a year, and he is relatively young, thought to be in his late 20s or early 30s.  The nuclear test was followed by effusive praise for the young leader by the KCNA official wire service, by Chosun Central TV, and by the organ of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, Rodong Sinmun.