“For the Central Publicity Department, the main focus with regard to the nuclear test is how we report North Korea’s relationship with China,” one Communist Party newspaper editor told Biganzi earlier this week. “That is to say, we really aren’t supposed to at all.”

Words of caution that are not at all surprising, but are to be taken seriously. After all, the edgy academic journal Strategy and Management was shuttered two years ago after it obliquely criticized Beijing’s support for Pyongyong. “We may publish a few views Xinhua won’t,” said this editor. “But we must check in with the Foreign Ministry first, just to make sure we’re going along with the mainstream of Beijing’s policy.”

With that in mind, let’s examine the latest cover package from China Newsweek (Note: China Newsweek is not related to the English-language Newsweek Magazine), the most ambitious to surface on the mainland so far regarding the nuke test to the north. The package, which hit newstands on Thursday, is very carefully finessed. Taking cues from the government, it’s entitled, simply, “Brazen North Korea”. But the magazine’s well-reported analysis is a refreshingly open attempt to address what China can and should do in response. Inside, the China Newsweek teaser text to the four-page package reads: “North Korea’s nuclear test is turning northeast Asia into different world from what it once was. As the backdrop changes, the focus is on how China will transform its role.”

For a recap, translated excerpts and few original comments on the package from someone at China Newsweek, click here.

China Newsweek’s running feature, three pages in length, starts by recounting events leading up to the nuclear test on Monday. “Why did North Korea carry out the nuclear test on October 9?” it opens.

“Internally,” the magazine observes, the North was marking four key anniversaries. “Externally,” it goes on, Japan’s newly installed leader Shinzo Abe was paying an inaugural presidential visit to China and North Korea. Interestingly, the piece skips entirely over Abe’s China stop. That’s left to another story, 20 pages further into the same edition of the magazine, which in turn barely even glances at the North Korea crisis. (In fact, virtually all Chinese media outlets strictly compartmentalized their coverage of these back-to-back events.) Instead, the magazine focuses on Abe’s arrival in South Korea, the selection South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon as the next U.N. General Secretary and in particular, U.S.-North Korea dynamics:

China Renmin University expert of international affairs Shi Yinhong says that in the past few months, political situation within North Korea has changed, and under continuous pressure from the United States, North Korea turned to extreme methods.

Then comes the section on Chinese policy, translated somewhat rgidly below:

China’s Choice

One South Korea expert believes that the reason North Korea decided to carry out the nuclear test was because it concluded: even if it did carry out a nuclear test, its relations with South Korea and China would not worsen.

However, as Shi Yinhong put it: “This is a challenge to the security of East Asia that threatens the fundamental interests of its countries, China included.”

According to foreign media reports, twenty minutes before it carried out the nuclear test, North Korea informed China about it. The “good intentions” of this advanced notice, however, would not be of any benefit to China. Many analysts reckon that this [the test] is a new foreign policy test for China.

“This shows that the concrete differences between China and North Korea have grown,” Shi Yuanhua, director of the Fudan University Center for Korean Studies. Although China did not go along with [Japan’s original] resolution allowing for the use of military measures under Chapter VII [of the UN Charter] during the U.N. Security Council deliberations after North Korea’s missile test in July, North Korea believed that the resolution that was passed by the United Nations was a declaration of war against it.

There were reports in the Japanese media that said, after the United Nations Security Council passed its resolution on July 15 sanctioning North Korea, North Korea convened a meeting of leading overseas consular and embassy staff from July 18 to 22. While Kim Jong-il did not attend the meetings, he sent down instructions: “Right now the whole world is our enemy. We must rely on ourselves to resolve our difficulties.”

“Following this nuclear test, what’s really worth paying attention to is the change in Sino-North Korean relations,” says Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert at the CCP Central Party School.

Two hours after the nuclear detonation, the Chinese government issued a statement…The wording of the statement was unprecedented in its harshness in using the word “brazen” (ÊÇçÁÑ∂). “It demonstrates the Chinese government’s severe dissatisfaction,” says Zhang.

…Zhang Liangui believes that if a North Korea possessing nuclear weapons becomes a reality, then northeast Asia will not be peaceful again. He also points out that in the period before this, China looked upon returning to the six-party talks mostly as a goal, not as a means.

Phoenix Television commentator Qiu Zhenhai holds that this nuclear test is a very clear signal that sends a message: the traditional significance of the six-party talks is already dead. If the nuclear test is verified, it means that North Korea is already a nuclear state, whereas the original intentions of the six-party talks was to stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear state.

What the international community is watching most closely right now is, if the United States and Japan propose a resolution enforcing sanctions, or adopting ever tougher collective measures, will China agree in the end. Qiu Zhenhai thinks that ultimately the interests of China and the United States on the Korean peninsula are not consistent with one another, but given the current crisis, the two parties need to cooperate.

Some Chinese experts contend that full sanctions do not by any means accord with China’s interests. “North Korea’s rival is the United States, not China. At the same time, North Korea is still a buffer zone in Sino-U.S. relations, and the six-party talks are an effective channel to balance Sino-U.S. relations. When a country like North Korea, by pushing them into emergency, moves toward a position opposite China, do the losses outweigh the gains or not? If war unfolds, how would China handle the potential wave of refugees?

Clearly, no matter what kind of response is formulated, it will be an especially arduous choice for China to make…

The running story concludes:

[The U.S.-based Korea Economic Institute’s Scott] Rembrandt believes that the United States will put strong pressure on South Korea and China to reduce their economic exchanges with North Korea. But he also reveals a worry of many American analysts: China, and possibly Russia as well, might block wording related to the armed resolution invoked in Chapter Seven [of the U.N. Charter].

As for the military option, people’s opinions vary widely. In an interview with this magazine, the director of Korea Studies Center at Fudan University, Shi Yuanhua, and the Korean Economic Institute director of research and academic affairs, Rembrandt, hold that a military attack is not too likely to occur.

Still, CCP Central Party School professor Zhang Liangui contends that armed force could become America’s first option, but that this process will be slow.

Zhang Liangui also disclosed that a few years ago, an expert from the American think tank Rand Corporation had told him, the company had handed United States government a research report which contended that China had the ability to exert added pressure on North Korea, but that China ‘did not do everything in its power’ (‰∏ç‰ΩøÂÖ®Âäõ). Consequently, Rand Corporation made the recommendation that, if China continued to ‘connive’ (Á∫µÂÆπ) with North Korea, then the United States should hold talks with North Korea. As long as North Korea did not develop nuclear weapons (Êêûʆ∏Ê≠¶Âô®), the United States would tacitly consent to the existence of this [China ‘conniving with’ N. Korea]; but at the same time it would encourage Japan, Taiwan and even Australia to develop nuclear weapons. Thus the situation around China’s perimeter would deteriorate.

At the time, this expert stated, the Bush Administration ruled out that sort of option. But in May last year, the U.S. Republican Party Committee on Foreign Relations (trans?? ÁæéÂõΩÂÖ±ÂíåÂÖö§ñ‰∫§ÂßîÂëò‰ºö) submitted another report containing similar recommendations, but it also was rejected by the Bush Administration. That shows that the U.S. government internally is actually considering this; it’s just that it has not carried out this option. “[But] If North Korea really does become a nuclear state, precautions must be taken against the United States going back to this policy alternative,” says Zhang Liangui.

The running feature ends on that rather vague and abrupt note. Then comes a one-page Q&A with many of the same experts quoted in the running piece. Only the last question really adds to what’s already been written:

China Newsweek: How will China respond to this crisis?

Rembrandt: ‘The view of many American analysts is that China will not abandon North Korea. In the short term it will take measures to maximize the pressure, but over the long-term it will still go mild and lenient. In order to pursue the goal of a well-off society, the Chinese government worries more about North Korea collapsing as well as refugees flowing into China than it does North Korea having nuclear weapons.

‘The American government will try to make Beijing see that North Korea is in fact a burden that does not have any strategic benefit to China.’

Zhang Liangui: ‘North Korea has already laid its cards on the table. And China doesn’t have many cards left to play. But so long as it keeps in step with the international community, the North Korean nuclear issue can be resolved.’

——————–

After the latest issue came out, Biganzi chatted with an senior editor at China Newsweek about the package:

Biganzi: Had any problems with the story?

Editor: No problems. Not yet. Actually, we’re planning to do more next week. This week was a rush. We only had a day and a half to report. Nothing in this story is really that new.

Biganzi: No anecdotes, just quotes..

Editor: Yeah, none of these professors will tell us anecdotes. We couldn’t print them anyway.

Biganzi: But it seems you’d like to see Beijing get quite a bit tougher on North Korea for its own sake, though the point is couched…

Editor: We cannot possibly express ourselves clearly. You know the Foreign Ministry’s attitude as well as we do.

Biganzi: Almost everyone else in the Chinese press has stuck pretty close to the Xinhua boilerplate. Why not you?

Editor: We never follow Xinhua.