Deng Yuwen and China's Relations toward North Korea

Deng Yuwen
"'Give up on Pyongyang,' says China insider"

JoongAng Daily

According to Deng Yuwen, deputy editor of Study Times, journal of the Central Party School of China's Communist Party, in an article, "China should abandon North Korea," written for the Financial Times (February 27, 2013), China should cut North Korea loose, especially since the North's recent nuclear test. Why? Five reasons:

First, a relationship between states based on ideology is dangerous.

Ostensibly, China's foreign relations should be based on China's national interests.

Second, basing China's strategic security on North Korea's value as a geopolitical ally is outdated.

North Korea offers not security, but insecurity! Its provocative actions draw animosity toward China.

Third, North Korea will not reform and open up to the world.

If the North reforms, it will collapse. Why should China support a regime that will eventually fail?

Fourth, North Korea is pulling away from Beijing.

Why hold to close relations with a regime that shows no gratitude to China, a regime that has even excised from its history China's support during the Korean War?

Last, once North Korea has nuclear weapons, it cannot be ruled out that the capricious Kim regime will engage in nuclear blackmail against China.

The North shows actual animosity toward China, implicitly using its nuclear card against the Chinese. Deng's conclusion:

Considering these arguments, China should consider abandoning North Korea. The best way of giving up on Pyongyang is to take the initiative to facilitate North Korea's unification with South Korea. Bringing about the peninsula's unification would help undermine the strategic alliance between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul; ease the geopolitical pressure on China from northeast Asia; and be helpful to the resolution of the Taiwan question.

This would probably work for China only if US troops were withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula, as Deng makes clear in an interview with the JoongAng Daily. That might be worth the result . . .