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Putin to discuss Pyongyong in Beijing

By John Ruwitch

The United States, South Korea and Japan decided to suspend emergency fuel oil deliveries to North Korea from December, demanding that Pyongyang abandon nuclear weapons development plans it had promised not to pursue in return for light-water nuclear reactors and fuel oil

BEIJING: When Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Beijing next week, he and Chinese leaders are sure to talk about ways to convince neighbouring North Korea to drop its disruptive plans to develop nuclear weapons.

But whether they can come up with a way to rein in the unpredictable North, the focus of American wrath after disclosing its nuclear efforts, is doubtful, analysts said on Thursday.

Ex-Communist Russia and fast-reforming Communist China — two of Pyongyangg’s very few friends — have very little sway over their small, isolated neighbour, the analysts said.

They can only apply diplomatic pressure and offer some small carrots, like trade incentives, because neither is willing to wield the proverbial stick, they said.

“Talking to them in forceful terms won’t work,” said Korea specialist Piao Jianyi of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Of Pyongyang’s two Cold War-era “big brothers”, Beijing is now the bigger player.

“China is more important to North Korea than Russia because China is the primary source of the oil and the food that keeps the regime standing up,” said Peter Hayes, head of the California-based Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development.

“It has a lot of leverage, but not a lot of credible leverage,” he said. “If you actually use it to bring the regime to its knees, what does it help if you create such stress in North Korea that there are food riots or there’s no oil and everything grinds to a halt?

“That isn’t going to make anyone happy,” he added.

Beset by natural disasters since the mid-1990s, North Korea has become dependent on international aid to fight hunger and power shortages. Chinese figures put Beijing among the top donors and experts say China gives much more aid which it does not openly acknowledge.

Stick or carrot? The United States, South Korea and Japan decided to suspend emergency fuel oil deliveries to North Korea from December, demanding that Pyongyang abandon nuclear weapons development plans it had promised not to pursue in return for light-water nuclear reactors and fuel oil.

China, however, is against sanctions and is probably unwilling to cut aid, said Tim Savage, a fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.

“It’s unlikely at this point that the Chinese would consider cutting off aid,” he said. “Any cutoff of Chinese aid risks increasing the food shortages in North Korea which then increases the number of refugees flooding across the border into China.”

Experts say several hundred thousand North Koreans eke out a living on the Chinese side of their porous border. In the past year, more than 100 have embarrassed Beijing by getting into foreign diplomatic missions, with the help of covert networks, and seeking asylum in prosperous South Korea.

Russia, with its sickly economy, gives much less aid to North Korea. Its only sanction would be to pull out technicians helping run Soviet-era power plants and the like.

China and Russia, however, can exert pressure on North Korea with words and economic incentives since they are basically trusted friends and share a border.

“The best way is to express their attitude, the common view of China and Russia,” said Piao. “Making their very clear common position known and emphasising that position will help.”

Hayes said China could also give North Korea security assurances.

“I think they’d whisper in North Korea’s ear and they’d say ‘look, we have nuclear weapons and you don’t need them’,” he said. “They would say ‘we will be extremely upset if you do this and it would make it difficult for us to help you in terms of facilitating joint trade, investment and financing arrangement’.

“But do they have any direct way of controlling or dealing with North Korea’s nuclear strategy? No, they don’t. The Russians have even less,” he said.

In the end it is up to fiercely independent Pyongyang.

“If ultimately they think that the nuclear weapons programme is necessary for regime survival then they’ll continue it regardless of what the Chinese tell them,” said Savage. “I think at some point and at some level the North Koreans have to make the ultimate decision between nuclear weapons or economic development. They can’t have both.” —Reuters

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