History and Development of the Korea Nuclear Issue

Unsatisfied with the IAEA’s inspection, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT on March 12, 1993, which caused the first-round nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. China strongly opposed nuclear proliferation in the region and urged the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to end the crisis through negotiations. During the crisis, as some analysts pointed out, China, "...quietly and firmly, in private, counseled the North to remain a member of the nonproliferation treaty.” The crisis finally ended with the signing of the Agreed Framework between the DPRK and the United States on October 21, 1994. According to the Agreed Framework, the DPRK agreed to allow full and continuous inspections of its existing nuclear sites, to freeze the operation of and later dismantle its graphite-based nuclear reactors, and the United States agreed to supply heavy fuel oil to the DPRK, organize a consortium of nations to build new nuclear reactors based on a less dangerous light water technology, and gradually ease restrictions on trade, investment, and diplomatic contacts, leading to the establishment of full diplomatic relations.

2.3 Second-round crisis

After his inauguration as the U.S. president, George W. Bush rejected the "engagement” approach set in motion by President Bill Clinton and said that he would undertake a sweeping review of U.S. policy toward North Korea. In January of 2002, in his State of the Union Message, President Bush labeled North Korea as part of an "axis of evil,” along with Iran and Iraq. When U.S. special envoy James Kelly visited North Korea on October 3, 2002, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister admitted that the DPRK had been enriching uranium. Accordingly, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) Executive Board (the European Union, Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK), and the United States) during its meeting in New York on November 14, 2002, decided to suspend heavy fuel oil deliveries and a possible rescheduling of construction on the light water nuclear reactors. North Korea, in turn, ordered IAEA inspectors out of Yongbyon and took actions to uncap and reprocess the spent fuel stored there and restart the reactor. As a result, a new round of nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula erupted.
North Korea’s 2003 began with sharp friction with the U.S. over Pyongyang’s nuclear program. On January 10, 2003, North Korea made a bold move by declaring its withdrawal from the NPT, the second time since 1993. Meanwhile, the Chinese government expressed serious concern about the new round of nuclear crisis and urged the United States and the DPRK to hold direct talks. During Chinese Former President Jiang Zemin's visit to Crawford, Texas for his third summit meeting with President George W. Bush--just days before the revelation of North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program, he offered to cooperate with the United States on working out a peaceful solution of the issue and declared that China supports a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. President Jiang and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, in the joint communique released at the conclusion of their summit meeting in Beijing on December 2, 2002, called on North Korea to give up its development of nuclear weapons and resume dialogue with the United States on the basis of the Agreed Framework. The newly elected Chinese President Hu Jintao, during a phone conversation with President Bush on March 19, 2003, said that China has always stood for keeping the Korean peninsula nuclear-free, maintaining its peace and stability, and solving problems through dialogue; in the meantime, actions that could aggravate the situation should not be taken. In addition, Hu said the key to solving the issue is to launch dialogue as soon as possible, especially between the United States and the DPRK. On March 27, 2003, the Chinese and the Russian foreign ministers issued the Sino-Russian joint communiqué on the DPRK nuclear issue in Beijing, which considered equal and constructive dialogue between the United States and the DPRK to be of great significance, and urged North Korea and the United States to start bilateral dialogue and negotiations as soon as possible.
2.4 Three-party talk

All these elements led to the first three-way talks in Beijing during April 23-25, 2003. The talks gave North Korea room to save face by calling them de facto bilateral meetings. The talks were hosted by China, which played a key role in breaking the impasse. Beijing was strongly encouraged to take on the role of intermediary by the U.S., which had insisted on multilateral pressure on Pyongyang. The three-party talks, however, fell short of deriving an agreement, though both sides agreed to meet again.

2.5 First-round six-party talk

The diplomatic impasse continued until China brokered another set of multilateral, six-party talks, through shuttle diplomacy. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo was shuttling in mid July between Pyongyang and Washington and pushed both toward negotiations. This was preceded by his trip to Moscow and the visit by another Chinese envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, to Washington. China promised North Korea a bilateral meeting with the U.S. during the talks, while persuading Washington that it could still claim a success, as any bilateral contact would occur within the multilateral framework. China’s efforts bore fruit when North Korea announced on July 30 its willingness to join the multilateral meeting August 27-29, 2003 with the U.S., South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, in Beijing. The talks, which pave the way for a multilateral communication framework in the region, ended with a six-point consensus, including a call for continued dialogue, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the consideration of the security concerns of North Korea, and the avoidance of any action that might aggravate the situation.

2.6 Second-round six-Party talk

The first-round of the six-party talks is the fruit of China’s successful mediation. However, it still left some problems unsolved which called for another round of talks. Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the National People’s Congress, paid an official visit to the DPRK form October 29 to 31, 2003. Both DPRK and China agreed to continue the process of the six-party talks. Dai Bingguo, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister visited South Korea and Japan from November 9 to 16, 2003. On December 9, 2003, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing also met with Vice Foreign Minister of DPRK Kim Jong Il, and exchanged each other’s opinion about the six-party talks. All the efforts led to the successful opening of the second-round six-party talks from February 26 to 28, 2004.

The second-round of the six-party talks is an important step towards the peaceful solution of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsular through dialogue. During the meetings, every side proposed valuable and meaningful suggestions, and agreed to resolve the issue in a peaceful way through dialogue. Although no document was formulated at last, the six parties achieved consensus on the third round of the six-party talks and the establishment of a working group. The proposal of making the talks a mechanism was accepted by all parties. So the present work is to begin the meetings of the working group soon so as to prepare for the third-round of the six-party talks. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan also said this in a regular press conference on April 22, 2004.

Chapter 3 Reasons for China’s Involvement in the Six-party Talks

3.1 Security of Northeast Asia

China’s security concern on the nuclear issue is less in the world wide nuclear proliferation as the U.S. than in the regional distribution of capabilities. Once North Korea has nuclear weapons, it is likely to trigger a nuclear race in Northeast Asia, prompting South Korea and Japan to acquire their own nuclear weapons for self-defense. This will change the balance of power in Northeast Asia to China’s disadvantage and bring up China’s concern on Japan’s militarization, causing China to accelerate ways to strengthen its strategic position, which could then have impacts on Indian and Southeast Asian countries’ policies. As a result, the dangers of misperception and miscalculation might be high in Asia. Furthermore, from a macro perspective, the crisis has precisely offered an important opportunity to further erode the residual Cold War structure in Northeast Asia. The regional order may be entering another active period of reform to China’s advantage, in the sense that it will bring about progress in the regional system of inter-state relations rather than another cyclical round of the traditional shifts in the regional balance of power. Meanwhile, the climate has become increasingly favorable for exploring regional multilateral dialogue. In these circumstances, the process of peaceful solution of the Korean nuclear issue has released the long pent-up energy for demanding multilateral negotiation and cooperation. This has finally cumulated into the six-party talks, a unique format and framework for solving regional security issues suited to the characteristics of North Asia. It could be considered an epoch-making event in the region; clearly, a process has been set in motion for reshuffling inter-state relations in the region.

3.2 Stable surrounding environment for economic construction

It is mentioned in the Report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that the first two decades of the 21st Century is a period of strategic opportunity for China. China must grasp this chance and make great achievements in economic development. The peaceful settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue is just an important step for China to improve its surrounding strategic environment and utilize this strategic opportunity. Instability and war will have negative influence on foreign investment in China which has been essential in the country’s economic development, while refugee flow caused by war will seriously disrupt China’ domestic stability. China’s economic integration in Northeast Asia is another significant interest of China. As respectively the third and the eleventh largest economies of the world, Japan and South Korea’s trade with China has been greatly conducive to China’s economic modernization. Since 1970s, Sino-Japanese and Sino-South Korean Trade has grown by leaps and bounds. In 1978, Sino-South Korean trade totaled only US $ 4,000; by 1991, the year before the normalization of relations between the two countries, two-way trade increased to US $ 5.8 billion and made South Korea China’s eighth trade partner. In 1996, Sino-South Korean trade totaled almost US $ 20 billion. Japan is currently China’s largest trade partner, and between 1992 and 1996, Japan invested over US $ 11 billion in China. With economic development as China’s priority, war on the Korean Peninsula which will disrupt the domestic and external environment is the least thing China would like to see.

3.3 China’s qualification as a mediator

3.3.1 Close relation with U.S and Korean Peninsula

Although sometimes some western countries tried to lower China’s influence on Korean nuclear issue, China’s strategic position on the Korean peninsula is self-evident and commonly acknowledged. In present international community, China is the most influential country to North Korea—except U.S.—for the reasons as follows: first, unique geographic and economic closeness: North Korea, for its geographic closeness and long border line with China, has been regarded by China as an important buffer zone. China demonstrated that it can be tough with its neighbor by turning off the cross-border supply of oil for a few days. There were also reports of reorganization of China’s military forces along the Sino-Korean border. China surpassed the U.S. in 2003 as the leading market for South Korean exports, underscoring China’s central role in any solution to the crises of the Korean peninsula.

3.3.2 Obligation as a permanent member in Security Council

As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China has played a constructive role and held an impartial position in the settlement of international disputes. Specifically, China has pursued a “good neighbor, rich neighbor and stable neighbor policy” and made sustained efforts in the peaceful settlement of the Korean nuclear issue. This has greatly helped improve China’s image in the international community. Moreover, China keeps friendly or normal relations and share common interests with the other five countries in the talk at the same time, which gives China an opportunity to mediate the different interests of the six parties and to enhance their cooperation.

Chapter 4 China’s National Interests and Position in the Six-party Talks

4.1 China’s Interests

4.1.1 China and the United States

China’s first strategic interest in the Korean peninsula is to prevent the United States from its strategic expansion in North Korea and to keep general stability of Sino-U.S. strategic relationship. Actually, the Sino-U.S. interest relationship on Korean nuclear crisis is an epitome of the entire Sino-American strategic relationship: both parties have the same interests and significant divergence on a single issue as well. Viewed from the general situation of China’s external relationship, especially its influence on the Sino-U.S. strategic relationship, probably the Korean peninsula is the only factor for China to effectively contain the United States on the stage of global strategy, and the important issue to substantially cooperate with the United States. At present, China and the United States stand on opposite and stalemate positions on Taiwan issue and because of the unilateralism of the United States it’s really difficult to develop the strategic cooperation in the area of arms control and nonproliferation; though China and the United States have pretty large cooperation space in the area of anti-terrorism, which has been depressed due to gradual strong tendency of the United States of striving for hegemony by way of anti-terrorism. On the Korean peninsula, China can effectively contain expansion tendency of the United States on the one hand, and impose positive influence on the tendency of Sino-U.S. strategic relationship, so as to keep the stability of Sino-U.S. strategic relationship on the other hand, by promoting non-nuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. In this way, North Korea is an important strategic resource for China rather than a strategic burden.

4.1.2 China and North Korea and South Korea 

It is another important strategic interest for China to maintain non-nuclearization on the Korean peninsula. The issue of nuclear weapon on the Korean Peninsula is a historical legacy from the Cold War, and should be resolved with the end of the Cold War. Only if North Korea gave up the plan of developing nuclear weapons, the intense situation on the peninsula can be eased; otherwise, it’s hard to get out of the Cold War. It is foreseeable that under such a circumstance that North Korea’s strategic environment doesn’t get significant improvement, it won’t give up developing nuclear weapons easily. However, North Korea has only used the plan of nuclear weapons as a diplomatic leverage to break through the stalemate relationship with America up to now, and hasn’t stuck to the development of nuclear weapons. If America makes a promise of non-invasion in North Korea’s sovereignty and territory and begin the normal diplomatic relations with North Korea, North Korea will probably go back to the negotiation table. On this issue, it is feasible for the nuclear countries concerned including America to provide North Korea with security guarantee in exchange for non-nuclearization on the peninsula, and to promote building a non-nuclearization zone in Northeast Asia.

It is not proper to over-emphasize non-nuclearization on the peninsula without the consideration of its peace and stability; furthermore, China is firmly opposed to proposing non-nuclearization on the peninsula by force. Compared with the non-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula, peace and stability should be put in the first place and the non-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula should be promoted under the premise of peaceful settlement. Overemphasizing non-nuclearization equals disregard of North Korea’s rational security. It is not only unfair for North Korea, but also likely to urge it to further adhere to its plan of nuclear weapons. It is undoubted that North Korea’s plan of nuclear weapons is not fit for China’s interests, but it is not proper to unilaterally aggrandize its threat to China. In the last several decades, China is always under nuclear threat and nowadays it is obvious that the greatest nuclear threat to China in the world is not from North Korea.

It is imperative to keep and develop China’s strategic influence on the Korean peninsula, and try to build up a united Korean peninsula friendly to China. China enjoys security interests on the Korean peninsula, and Chinese strategic security should be increased rather than decreased in the process that North Korea gets out of the Cold War. The key is to develop friendly cooperative relationship between North and South Korea in an all-round way. In such a process, with the improvement and development of the relationship between North and South Korea, China can simultaneously develop its friendly relationship with both countries, and provide North Korea with more help in the area of economic reform and opening up. It means not only the common development and prosperity, but also greater security and stability of both China and the Korean peninsula through economic cooperation. The independence, peace and unity of the Korean peninsula conform to China’s national interests, deserving the support from China; meanwhile, united Korean Peninsula’s friendly relationship with China conforms to common interests of people in North Korea and South Korea as well. Therefore, it is the common goal of China and both parties of Korean Peninsula, to pursue a united Korean peninsula friendly to China.  

4.2 China’s Position

During the whole process of the Korean nuclear crisis, China has firmly stood on its three positions: that China supports a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula; that the peninsular peace and stability should be maintained; and that the dispute should be resolved peacefully through dialogue.

4.2.1 Nuclear-free Korean Peninsula

North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons is the direct cause of the Korea nuclear issue. Neither China nor North Korea can afford the result if a nuclear bomb explodes along their common border line and the whole world will suffer from a nuclear war during a long period. So a nuclear-free Korean peninsula is the most desirable solution for the Korea nuclear crisis.

4.2.2 Maintenance of peace and stability

While the Bush administration has sought to bring international pressure to North Korea, China is worried that Pyongyang may be pushed into taking even more reckless actions and then has repeatedly emphasized the need for peaceful resolution of the crisis. Meanwhile, as economic development takes command, China requires a stable international environment for expanding trade, attracting foreign investment and technology transfers, and hence has its national interest in seeing a stable Korean peninsula.

4.2.3 Peaceful solution by dialogue

Although some people believe China should strengthen its role in the issue, Chinese officials and analysts maintain that the key to resolving the crisis is direct dialogue between North Korea and the United States. While remaining outside the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) consortium, China nevertheless regards the Agreed Framework as a stabilizing factor in helping defuse nuclear tension; providing the energy supplies Pyongyang desperately needs for generating electricity; and maintaining contact between the United States and the DPRK that could eventually lead to the normalization of bilateral relations. Instead of blaming North Korea for the collapse of the 1994 Agreed Framework, China has been calling for both Pyongyang and Washington to return to the agreement and resolve their dispute through dialogue. The Chinese hope that face-saving ways can be found for Pyongyang and Washington to return to the negotiating table.

Chapter 5 Conclusion

The Korea nuclear issue was the product of the Cold War and in the last decades, the United States and North Korea has conflicted both militarily and diplomatically. At the beginning of 2003, this crisis has new development. North Korea declared its withdrawal from the NPT again. As a close neighboring country of the Korean peninsula and an important country of international community, China showed its serious concern for the issue and urged North Korea and the United States to start bilateral dialogue and negotiation. To resolve the crises, China hosted a three-party talk and two rounds six-party talk in 2003 and 2004.

China, the qualified mediator of the Korea nuclear issue, is involved in the nuclear issue for two main reasons, the security of the whole Northeast Asia and a stable surrounding environment for its economic development.

In the process of resolving the crisis, China also has its own national interests and position. To contain American strategic expansion in North Korea, to maintain general stability of Sino-American relationship and to pursue a united and nuclear-free Korean peninsula are China’s main interests in the Korean nuclear issue. Meanwhile, a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, the peninsular peace and stability and the peaceful settlement of dispute through dialogue are the three positions China firmly held.

What lies in store in the future? Needless to say, there will be divisions and competition, yet the author believes the mainstream will be cooperation based on reason. China's policy towards the settlement of the Korean nuclear issue will continue to be guided by its three principles and the progress reportedly made during the Russian special envoy's trip to the DPRK will ultimately come and both North Korea and the United States will soften their positions and come to the negotiation table. 

Nowadays, cooperation, multilateralism and peace increasingly became three noticeable strong voices in the world trend. China, as one of the most important countries in the world to prop up the international peace and development, has played a significant and indispensable role in the Korea nuclear issue. Through great efforts and with sincere attitude, China not only successfully hosted the six-party talks which provided a peaceful means to settle the international disputes, but also safeguarded its national interests of a stable environment for economic construction and promoted the global cooperation and common development.

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