Bloomberg reports that, quite contrary to media speculation that China-North Korea relations would soon sour, a new bridge set to open next year is being built by China with hopes of deepening economic ties between the two countries:

Across the Yalu River dividing China and North Korea, towers that will support a sleek suspension bridge rise south of one that U.S. bombers targeted during the Korean War to prevent China from supplying its ally.

The bridge into the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong, set to open next year, is a bet that trade will swell even as the U.S. pressures Communist Party leaders to exert economic leverage on the North to abandon its nuclear program.[...]

[...]The three-kilometer bridge, which the official Xinhua News Agency said will cost 2.2 billion yuan ($356 million), will speed commerce through a city that now handles 70 percent of the two countries’ trade. The span illustrates how the North is binding itself even tighter with China as it limits economic ties with South Korea, including by temporarily suspending work at the jointly run Gaeseong industrial facility.

As new sanctions are placed on North Korea in response to its nuclear threats, the country becomes increasingly reliant on China for trade. China, for its part, wants stability on the Korean peninsula, and worries that cutting off economic ties with the country  would work against that desire. The Washington Post reports:

So why would China still support North Korea, despite all its recent misgivings? China’s policy for the Korean peninsula can be summed up in six little words: “No war, no instability, no nukes.” Those are Beijing’s priorities, and in that order. Chinese leaders don’t want nukes, which is why they’re upset about Pyongyang’s recent nuclear brinksmanship. But even more than that, they don’t want the North Korean state to collapse into chaos or devolve into war, and they know that economic support and cross-border trade are good ways to maintain the status quo. And it’s the status quo that China appears most interested in.

China also has a desire for North Korea to embrace economic reform, and sees an opportunity towards that goal in maintaining strong economic ties with the country. The problem is, business with North Korea is not what China wants it to be – many Chinese businesses are reluctant to invest in the Hermit Kingdom. Reuters reports on the recent history of China’s economic relations with North Korea, and explains that, while China may be frustrated with its geopolitical behavior, North Korea holds quite a few cards in the Sino-North Korean dialogue:

The problem for Beijing is twofold: getting Pyongyang to buy into the idea of economic reform and the reluctance of Chinese businessmen to venture into one of the world’s riskiest investment destinations.

While China is frustrated with Pyongyang over its threats to wage war on South Korea and the United States, its efforts to build economic links with North Korea from places like Jilin help explain why Beijing is unlikely to crack down hard on the reclusive state.

Since then-Premier Wen Jiabao went to North Korea in 2009 – just months after Pyongyang’s second nuclear test – China has sought to stabilize the Korean peninsula by stepping up its effort to steer the North toward economic reform. China is not about to give up that goal even though it’s under U.S. pressure to get tough after North Korea’s third nuclear test, on February 12.

“It’s not even shepherding anymore. It’s more of just inundating North Korea with all of these influences from the Chinese side where the idea is to essentially corrupt them, show them what it tastes like to make money,” said John Park, a North Korea expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard Kennedy School.[...]

For more on China’s relationship with North Korea, see prior CDT coverage.

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Post tags: economic reform, North Korea, north korea investment, North Korea relations, North Korea trade, yalu river
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As reporters gather in Seoul to await the latest hostile missive (or missile) from the North, Western governments have continued to press China to do more to rein in their putative ally. Like a pit pull chained in the front yard, North Korea does keep the neighbours on edge. Of course there is always the danger of what might happen if you neglect to feed the dog.

China’s involvement on the Korean peninsula in the period since the Korean war has been cited amply in recent press accounts. But Beijing’s interests there have historical roots which reach back far earlier than 1950. For more than two thousand years, successive Chinese dynasties have seen Korea as a tributary to be protected, a prize to be coveted, or as a dangerous land bridge which might convey “outer barbarians” into China. Unsurprising then that China should have a long history of mucking about in Korean politics, a history which has often brought it into conflict with that other great Eastern power, Japan. This has seldom worked out well for the Korean people. Nor has it led to much joy for China.

[…] The misgivings felt by Koreans watching outside forces—particularly China and Japan—intervening to solve problems on the peninsula is understandable, against the historical backdrop. As is China’s reluctance to commit itself to managing Pyongyang. Today’s deadlock is both a legacy of the cold war and the latest chapter in a long story of power shifts across East Asia.

At Tea Leaf Nation last week, Taylor Washburn focused on the disputed status of the first-millennium “proto-Korean” kingdom of Goguryeo:

In late January, 2013, South Korea’s Hankyoreh newspaper reported that an elite group of scholars in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin was conducting “closed research” on a freshly discovered stele, an engraved memorial stone dating to the fifth century A.D. What interest could the examination of such an artifact hold for contemporary Korean readers? “Concerns are being raised,” the Hankyoreh piece noted vaguely, “that […] it is very likely that China will use the results of the study … to reinforce its argument that Goguryeo belongs to China.”

[…] Whatever defensive instincts may have inspired China’s Goguryeo revisionism, efforts to downplay the independence of Korean civilization cannot but appear menacing from across the Yellow Sea. In a 2012 poll, nearly three quarters of South Koreans indicated that they perceive China as a military threat. Although some of this growing fear undoubtedly stems from Beijing’s ongoing support for Pyongyang, it also reflects a deeper anxiety that a stronger China will seek to revive elements of the Sinocentric regional order that prevailed in East Asia before the arrival of Westerners and the ascent of Meiji Japan, under which Korea’s rulers paid tribute to the Manchu Qing.

If the current Chinese investigation of the Jilin stele continues to make news in Korea, it will certainly exacerbate such unease. What remains to be seen is whether Beijing, mindful of its own security imperatives, will determine this a price worth paying. For the moment, at least, the ghosts of Goguryeo can rest. But William Faulkner’s familiar observation is as true of Manchuria as Mississippi: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

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Post tags: Cold War, history, Korea, North Korea, North Korea relations, south korea, South Korea relations
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“The Daily Show” is not big in China. But when the popular Chinese Web portal Sina posted an eight-minute segment from the show discussing the latest North Korean provocations, it racked up an astounding 2.8 million views and counting, as well as tens of thousands of comments, many of them praising the show.[...]

[...W]hat explains the enormous popularity? The “Daily Show” segment, without meaning to, may have hit on growing frustration among Chinese citizens, particularly middle-class urbanites, with their misbehaving ally. Chinese state media, though it has allowed some measured disapproval of Kim’s latest threats, has held back from so roundly mocking the country and its supremely mockable regime. The voraciousness with which Chinese viewers are watching the segment suggests that their appetite for such coverage, for publicly criticizing an ally that has become something of an embarrassment, far exceeds what they’re getting.

While there has been suspicion that the Chinese government is growing uneasy with North Korea, there doesn’t appear to be evidence that the official stance will soon change as Chinese media isn’t providing the criticism that Jon Stewart did in early April. After noticing the popular reception of his clip in China, Jon Stewart put together a special segment for his newfound audience, which has also been garnering hits in China:

In a follow-up for the Washington Post, Max Fisher again asks what’s behind The Daily Show’s success in China, noting that it might prove wrong the widely-held assumption that China’s middle class is apolitical:

Maybe it has to do with China’s restrictive media, which tend not to venture into the kind of cutting political satire that has made the show so popular at home. The population of young, urban, middle-class, Web-savvy Chinese is growing rapidly. [...]It stands to reason that they’d also be interested in the sort of news coverage that so appeals to young, urban middle classes around the world. But they can’t get it from the Chinese media, so they have to go elsewhere.

Jon Stewart, in other words, seems to have stumbled upon one of the most underserved media markets in the world. He’s right: He, or someone, should be doing a China-focused “Daily Show.” Unfortunately, something as freely critical and openly mocking as “The Daily Show” is unlikely to get past China’s censors anytime soon.

The good news is that maybe, just maybe, the apparent popularity of “The Daily Show” in China undercuts the oft-repeated concern that young, middle-class Chinese aren’t interested in politics, that they’re preoccupied with consumerism and getting ahead. That’s a view I’ve heard far more from frustrated Chinese than from foreigners, so I’m in no position to challenge it, but it is important to note at least this possible sign of greater interest in politics and the world.

Also see prior CDT coverage of of China’s relationship with North Korea. For more political satire, see CDT’s Drawing the News series.

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Post tags: censorship, comedy, media censorship, news media, North Korea, North Korea relations, political satire
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Responding to regional worries over North Korea’s bellicose threats, China on Sunday expressed concern and what appeared to be veiled criticism of its longtime ally.

“No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping at an economic forum in Hainan province. Avoiding mentioning North Korea by name, Xi said, “While pursuing its own interests, a country should accommodate the legitimate interests of others.”

[...]China — long seen as a key factor propping up the regime in Pyongyang — recently has shown signs of frustration after North Korea ignored its pleas not to carry out a recent nuclear test.

Bloomberg explains why Xi’s comments should be interpreted as directed at North Korea, despite the fact that he didn’t mention the country by name:

“While President Xi didn’t refer to North Korea, it is fair” to interpret his comments as directed toward the Korean situation, said Fang Xiuyu, a professor of Korean studies at Fudan University. “Xi’s remarks are the most decisive comments so far from the Chinese side of the issue.”

Xi’s speech was covered from a similar angle elsewhere in the western press. However, Xi’s indirect reference to North Korea appears to be a footnote in a larger discourse dealing more directly with China’s peaceful development and its role in maintaining rapport with its neighbors in the region. Coverage from the Global Times seems to show Xi’s emphasis on continuity in regional diplomacy:

President Xi Jinping said China will make contributions toward peace and development in Asia and the world at an international forum that opened on Sunday.

China will vigorously promote development and prosperity in both Asia and the world, Xi said when delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2013 in Boao, a coastal town in south China’s Hainan Province.

“Countries, whether big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, should all contribute their share in maintaining and enhancing peace,” Xi said.

[...]Xi also said China will continue to properly handle differences and frictions with relevant nations.

While upholding its sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, China will maintain good relations with its neighbors, as well as maintain overall peace and stability in the region, he said.

A post from All Things Nuclear looks at recent foreign and domestic coverage of China’s stance on North Korea to argue that the U.S. media is exaggerating a possible shift in Chinese foreign policy:

There is no visible sense that China’s propaganda machinery is preparing the Chinese public for major events on the peninsula or for a change in Chinese policy. There is little sense of emergency or crisis. [...]

The main Chinese themes on North Korea have not changed as a result of the current situation. China would like to see a relaxation of tensions, renewed regional dialog and economic reform. They do not appear to believe there is a high risk of armed conflict. They argue sanctions are counterproductive and the United States should engage directly with the leaders of North Korea at a high level in order to provide the sense of security they now seek through nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The one change repeated to me by several Chinese colleagues this week is China now believes North Korea is determined to build a functional nuclear deterrent. They blame the United States for that development. It is, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, “regrettable.” But there is no apparent justification for assuming it will be a turning point for Chinese foreign policy.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: diplomacy, media, North Korea, North Korea relations, western media coverage, Xi Jinping
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As rantings from North Korea become ever more belligerent and bizarre, there are signs that China, its only outside friend in the world, is beginning to distance itself, too.

Normally reluctant to voice any sign of despair whenever tensions deepen on the Korean Peninsula, the Chinese are now talking about their “serious concern” over escalating developments there.

[...C]riticism of North Korea’s extreme behaviour is becoming relatively commonplace in the Chinese media, although one editor was suspended last month for calling on the People’s Republic to abandon Mr. Kim and his military cohorts.

If there is a shift in China’s policy toward North Korea, it follows years of growing frustration by Chinese leaders at the headaches caused by their strange, unpredictable ally. For China, it’s been all give and very little reward, and the country’s new helmsmen may have had it.

The Telegraph points to small changes in Chinese foreign policy as evidence that China, a country preoccupied with a domestic anti-corruptuption campaign and much tension in the South China Sea, is indeed losing patience with its old friend:

[...]Kurt Campbell, the former head of the State department in Asia, said there are signs that a relationship once described by Chairman Mao to be “as close as lips and teeth” is wearing thin.

“There is a subtle shift in Chinese foreign policy. Over the short to medium term, that has the potential to affect the calculus in north east Asia,” Mr Campbell said at a forum at John Hopkins university.

[...]“I do not think that subtle shift can be lost on Pyongyang,” he said. “They need a close relationship with China for every conceivable reason. It’s not in their strategic interest to alienate every country that surrounds them.

“The most important new ingredient has been a recognition in China that their previous approach to North Korea is not bearing fruit.”

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[…] In China, the uprising at Tiananmen Square convinced some members of the Party that the old method of indoctrinating people—which relied on the kind of threats and denunciations we hear from North Korea today—was no longer working in the modern age. Since Soviet-style P.R. had failed them, the Chinese turned to the holy land of public relations—America—and found a new, if unlikely, role model: the late Walter Lippmann, columnist, editor, and advisor to Woodrow Wilson. They were willing to overlook his early anti-Communism in order to embrace his efforts to sway U.S. public opinion to enter the First World War. The Chinese comrades took to quoting Lippmann’s belief in the power of pictures, which, in his words, “magnify emotion while undermining critical thought.”

While the late Kim Jong-il was still threatening to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire,” Chinese propagandists were becoming admiring students of Coca-Cola’s strategy, observing, as one Party textbook put it, that Coke proved that “if you have a good image, any problem can be solved.” To learn the art of modern spin, the Chinese Communist Party studied the masters: a five-day seminar for top propaganda officials made case studies out of Tony Blair’s response to mad-cow disease, and the Bush Administration’s handling of the U.S. media after 9/11.

This revamp has struggled to keep pace with more recent developments such as the growth of weibo and other social media, however. The Financial Times’ Jamil Anderlini writes that Beijing is “losing the virtual propaganda war” in the face of a “wave of mockery and cynicism against government”.

In just the past few years it has become fashionable to be anti-establishment and in private, senior party officials worry they have lost control of the public discourse, which now revolves around Weibo.

The fact that the party used to exercise such a stranglehold over all forms of public expression – from newspapers to television to theatre and fine arts – has probably made the online awakening of petty dissent so much more shocking to the mandarins in Beijing.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: George W. Bush, June 4th, North Korea, propaganda, social media, Soviet Union, Tony Blair, weibo
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Chang Ping, a former CMP fellow and a prominent editor at the Southern Daily Group, came under fire in 2008 after he published an editorial on FT Chinese about unrest in Tibet. That editorial, “Where does the truth about Lhasa come from?“, was the beginning of the end for Chang Ping’s long career with Southern Weekly. He was finally forced out in January 2011.

But one of the most interesting differences between Chang Ping’s case and that of Deng Yuwen is how much the latter has been talked about inside China. And one important reason for this is the rise of the microblog.

[…] It’s difficult to quantify the discussion over Deng Yuwen’s suspension and China’s policy toward North Korea, but there definitely is plenty of discussion out there. Once again, this raises the broader issue of how media control itself is being subjected to a greater degree of exposure than we’ve seen in the past, thanks in large part to the development of social media and other internet tools.

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Post tags: Central Party School, Financial Times, foreign policy, journalists, microblogs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, North Korea, weibo
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The editor, Deng Yuwen, told the South Korean paper Chosun Ilbo that the Foreign Ministry had called the Communist Party’s Central Party School in Beijing to complain about his article in the British paper, The Financial Times. It argued that China’s strategic alliance with North Korea was “outdated” and that the wayward ally was no longer useful as a buffer against United States influence.

[…] Because of Mr. Deng’s stature — he is deputy editor of Study Times, a weekly journal of the Central Party School, which trains rising officials — the article garnered attention in Washington and Europe. Some took it as a sign that perhaps the new Chinese government led by President Xi Jinping was fed up with North Korea after its third nuclear test in February and that it would modify its support.

Chosun Ilbo quoted Mr. Deng as saying in a telephone interview: “I was relieved of the position because of that article, and I’m suspended indefinitely. Although I’m still being paid by the company, I don’t know when I will be given another position.”

[…] So far, Chinese government policy makers have shown little sign of paying heed to Mr. Deng’s advice on Pyongyang.

Last year, Deng wrote ‘The Ten Grave Problems Facing China‘, described by Geremie Barmé as “perhaps the most damning list of political failures of the Hu-Wen era that has appeared in a mainland publication.”

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Post tags: Central Party School, North Korea, North Korea nuclear, nuclear testing
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Original post: South Korean authorities have revealed that malware used in a major cyberattack against Korean banks and broadcasters has been traced to an IP address in China. (For a detailed description of the attack, see Sean Gallagher’s account at Ars Technica.) The attack came amid North Korean threats of “catastrophic” retaliation if the U.S. persisted in flying B-52 bombers over the peninsula, however, and Pyongyang is widely regarded as the chief suspect. From Choe Sang-hun at The New York Times:

The Korea Communications Commission said Thursday that the disruption originated at an Internet provider address in China but that it was still not known who was responsible.

Many analysts in Seoul suspect that North Korean hackers honed their skills in China and were operating there. At a hacking conference here last year, Michael Sutton, the head of threat research at Zscaler, a security company, said a handful of hackers from China “were clearly very skilled, knowledgeable and were in touch with their counterparts and familiar with the scene in North Korea.”

But there has never been any evidence to back up some analysts’ speculation that they were collaborating with their Chinese counterparts. “I’ve never seen any real evidence that points to any exchanges between China and North Korea, ” said Adam Segal, a senior fellow who specializes in China and cyberconflict at the Council on Foreign Relations.

From Bloomberg News:

“Discovering that the code was from China makes it more likely that the attack was from North Korea, because a lot of North Korean hackers operate there,” said Ryou Jae Cheol, a professor of computer engineering and securities at Chungnam National University. “Who else would be making this kind of attack at this scale and timing other than North Korea?”

[…] “It’s highly probable that North Korea used Chinese IPs for the attacks,” said Lim Jong In, dean of Korea University’s Graduate School of Information Security. “These are sentimental attacks, aimed at spreading confusion to the whole society by paralyzing media and financial institutions. But it will take some time to exactly track who’s behind this as China is unlikely to actively cooperate.”

At Reuters, Ju-min Park described the difficulty of assessing North Korea’s cyberwarfare capabilities:

Jang Se-yul, a former North Korean soldier who went to a military college in Pyongyang to groom hackers and who defected to the South in 2008, estimates the North has some 3,000 troops including 600 professional hackers in its cyber unit.

[…] The North’s professional “cyber-warriors” enjoy perks such as luxury apartments for their role in what Pyongyang has defined as a new front in its “war” against the South, Jang told Reuters.

[…] “North Korea can’t invest in fighter jets or warships, but they have put all their resources into raising hackers. Qualified talent matters to cyber warfare, not technology,” said Lee Dong-hoon, an information security expert at Korea University in Seoul.

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Post tags: cyberattacks, cyberwar, hackers, hacking, North Korea, south korea, United States
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“The anti-missile issue has a direct bearing on global and regional balance and stability. It also concerns mutual strategic interests between countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans on Friday to bolster U.S. missile defenses in response to “irresponsible and reckless provocations” by North Korea, which has threatened a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States.

Hong said China believed efforts to increase security and resolve the problem of nuclear proliferation were best achieved through diplomatic means.

“Actions such as strengthening anti-missile (defenses) will intensify antagonism and will not be beneficial to finding a solution for the problem,” Hong said.

China condemned North Korea’s most recent nuclear weapons test last month, the third such test conducted by Pyongyang and the first since 2009, and even supported a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to impose tougher sanctions on the rogue state. But as Chris Buckley of The New York Times explains, China does not think more pressure will bring North Korea back to the negotiating table:

China has long served as North Korea’s most important diplomatic and economic supporter. It has opposed North Korean efforts to develop nuclear weapons, but has argued that harsh sanctions will not induce the North to abandon such ambitions.

China’s backing of the Security Council resolution, and open calls from prominent Chinese experts for their government to distance itself from North Korea, stirred speculation among some observers that China might move to reduce its political and economic support for the North.

But Chinese officials have been stressing that North Korea has its own security worries that should be dealt with, and that they do not see sanctions as the right tool to bring the North back to negotiations.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: missiles, North Korea, nuclear weapons, sanctions, U.S. relations, United States
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The council voted 15-0, with no debate, to adopt a resolution drafted by the U.S. and China in the aftermath of the Feb. 12 underground blast.

North Korea “will exercise the right to a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors and to defend the supreme interests of the country,” a foreign ministry statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency said today. It warned the UN “not to make another big blunder.”

“We take all North Korean threats seriously enough to ensure that we have the correct defense posture to deal with any contingencies that might arise,” Glyn Davies, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, said today after testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

China’s enforcement of sanctions is crucial, said Davies. China “remains central to altering North Korea’s cost calculus,” he said in testimony. “Both geography and history have endowed the People’s Republic of China with a unique —- if increasingly challenging -— diplomatic, economic, and military relationship” with North Korea.

Despite the unanimous support for tougher sanctions on Pyongyang, China’s Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, says sanctions are not the solution to North Korea. From The Voice of America:

Yang says China has always believed that sanctions are not the end goal of the Security Council’s actions or the fundamental way to resolve the issue. Yang was speaking at an annual press conference held on the sidelines of the country’s legislative meetings, or National People’s Congress.

The fresh sanctions include new measures to block bulk transfers of cash that are being used to support alleged illicit activities by the North, and further restricts ties to North Korea’s financial sector. They also call for a crackdown on suspicious cargo from the North, among other measures.

Some analysts believe that Beijing’s support of the new round of sanctions is a sign it is growing increasingly frustrated with the North. Others, however, are skeptical how far Beijing will go to implement them.

Yang’s press conference lasted about an hour and a half, and touched on a wide range of topics from China’s relations with Russia, Africa and Europe.

According to The New York Times, Yang has remarked that China will not forsake North Korea:

 China’s foreign minister said Saturday that Beijing would not abandon North Korea, reiterating China’s longstanding position that dialogue, not sanctions, is the best way to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear weapons.

The clearest sign of China’s exasperation with North Korea came Thursday at a side session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory group to the government that was open to the news media.

Delegates to the conference, according to a senior Communist Party official, Qiu Yuanping, talked about whether to “keep or dump” North Korea and debated whether China, as a major power, should “fight or talk” with the North.

The extent to which China will enforce the new United Nations sanctions remains unclear, an expert on the North Korean economy, Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, wrote in a blog post. There are plenty of loopholes for China to exploit if it wanted to, he noted.

Amid these calls for calm and restraint on North Korea, some analysts say that Beijing’s patience with Pyongyang is wearing thin. The Telegraph reports:

Zhang Liangui, a Korea expert at the Central Party School, which trains Communist cadres, said the protests in Pyongyang showed that North Korea is “mobilising its citizens for war” and that the situation was “hugely tense”.

He added that North Korea was pushing shut the gate to negotiation with any outside party, including China.

Li Kaisheng, a professor of International Relations at Xiangtan university said the UN resolution mainly focused on stopping “the luxurious life” of North Korea’s leaders.

“The mutual interest between China and North Korea has become non-existent, and China will not provide unconditional support to it, so any war will inevitably lead to the collapse of the North Korean regime,” he said.

While CDT previously reported on an increase in trade between China and North Korea in 2011, Reuters reports trade growth between the two countries has slowed sharply in 2012:

Trade between the two countries rose an annual 5.4 percent in 2012 to a total of $5.93 billion, compared with 62.4 percent growth in 2011, according to a report released on Thursday by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).

North Korea does not release any economic statistics.

The trade body said the fall was due lower global prices for coal and steel– the of the two main resources China imports from North Korea – and due to weaker demand as China’s economy grew just 7.8 percent in 2012, its weakest level since 1999, the report said.

“North Korea’s economic reliance on China is expected to become heavier in the future, with the gap between bilateral trade with South Korea and China growing wider,” the association said.

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Post tags: North Korea, nuclear, sanctions, trade, UNSC, Yang Jiechi
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China’s “old friend” isn’t known for playing nice. (Pumpkin Brother)

After North Korea’s February 12 nuclear test, condemnation of the blast rained in from both China’s government and the general public. Netizens voiced anxiety that irradiated fallout from the blast might travel across the border into China.

But China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) issued a report that dismissed the possibility of nuclear radiation from the blast reaching the Chinese border. Quoting data from the National Meteorological Center, the MEP claimed, “Even if fallout had leaked out [from the North Korean nuclear test], the wind mainly blows towards the southeast, and China would therefore not be affected.”

Many netizens weren’t blown away by the MEP’s assurances:

@2ndGenerationSickJiuFuTian: It seems nuclear fallout is classist; it [only] drifts towards countries with different ideologies.

@二代症久富田：核爆污染有阶级性，向不同的意识形态国家飘。

@DontWorryAlmostDone: The Third Kim decided on the nuclear blast, while the resulting radiation is under the command of China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection.

@别急快完了：核爆金三儿说了算，辐射规中国环保部指挥。

@EcoProtectionDongLiangJie: Be good, dear wind. You’ve got to be patriotic. China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection is counting on you.

@环保董良杰:风儿，乖乖，你要爱国啊。中国环保就靠你了

@WangXianSen: Even if it did blow over here, would the Ministry of Environmental Protection tell the truth?

@Wang先森：就算真飘过来了，环保部会说实话吗？

@HisOpponentIsScary: Can our Ministry of Environmental Protection’s most advanced technology control the direction of the spread of radiation?

@他的对手很可怕：我环保部最新技术，控制核扩散方向？

@Oso_azul: For a nuclear test that wasn’t conducted above ground or outdoors, the direction of the wind isn’t such a big issue. But if it was an underground nuclear test, then what about underground water sources?

@Oso_azul：不是露天的、地面的核试验，主要不关心风向。地下核试验，那地下水源呢？

@Roookie: Even if you were talking about PM2.5 pollution, could just one gust of wind really blow it away?

@Roookie：你当是PM2.5啊，一阵风就能刮走？

@YiWeiBing: I peed myself laughing! The great General Kim has invented an intelligent form of radiation that avoids what is nearby in search of what is far away.

@毅卫兵：笑尿了，伟大的金将军发明的舍近求远的智能辐射

Translation by Liz Carter. Via CDT Chinese.

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Post tags: environment, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Netizen Voices, North Korea, North Korea nuclear, North Korea relations, radiation
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“It’s all ready. A fourth and fifth nuclear test and a rocket launch could be conducted soon, possibly this year,” the source said, adding that the fourth nuclear test would be much larger than the third, at an equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT.

The tests will be undertaken, the source said, unless Washington holds talks with North Korea and abandons its policy of what Pyongyang sees as attempts at regime change.

North Korea worked to ready its nuclear test site, about 100 km (60 miles) from its border withChina, throughout last year, according to commercially available satellite imagery. The images show that it may have already prepared for at least one more test, beyond Tuesday’s subterranean explosion.

“Based on satellite imagery that showed there were the same activities in two tunnels, they have one tunnel left after the latest test,” said Kune Y. Suh, a nuclear engineering professor at Seoul National University in South Korea.

Chinese state media outlet Global Times says China needs to find the right way to punish North Korea:

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo are anxious to see China change its North Korean policy. Since Pyongyang’s nuclear test has damaged China’s interests, it’s necessary for China to give Pyongyang a certain “punishment.” The key problem is what the extent of this punishment should be.

Beijing should punish Pyongyang, but should also try to avoid being the focus of North Korean and global public opinion. The reduction in China’s assistance to North Korea shouldn’t be more prominent than the increase in sanctions by the US, Japan and South Korea. This should be the bottom line for China to participate in international sanctions against North Korea.

The Korean Peninsula has remained in a Cold War state. The West tends to perceive the North Korea issue from an ideological perspective, and the US has its own strategic considerations on the peninsula. The nuclear issue has become a time bomb. Both North Korea and the US, Japan and South Korea should take the blame for this. It’s unreasonable if Washington, Tokyo and Seoul don’t make any changes but demand that China change its attitude toward North Korea.
China should stick to being a mediator in the nuclear issue, and not join any side to confront the other. It’s possible that tensions on the peninsula will further escalate and a war could break out. China should prepare itself for any extreme situations, which is important for it to safeguard its security and not be held hostage by either side.

While China has urged the UN for prudence on North Korea, some Chinese are beginning to sour towards their friendship with Pyongyang. From The New York Times:

At home and abroad, China has long been regarded as North Korea’s best friend, but at home that sense of fraternity appears to be souring as ordinary people express anxiety about possible fallout from the test last Tuesday. The fact that North Korea detonated the device on a special Chinese holiday did not sit well, either.

Among Chinese officials, the mood toward the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has also darkened. The Chinese government is reported by analysts to be wrestling with what to do about a man who, in power for a little more than a year, thumbed his nose at China by ignoring its appeals not to conduct the country’s third nuclear test, and who shows no gratitude for China’s largess as the main supplier of oil and food.

“The public does not want China to be the only friend of an evil regime, and we’re not even recognized by North Korea as a friend,” said Jin Qiangyi, director of the Center for North and South Korea Studies at Yanbian University in Yanji City. “For the first time the Chinese government has felt the pressure of public opinion not to be too friendly with North Korea.”

Other experts suggested the test could worsen relations between the North and China and urged China’s new leadership to consider taking a tougher stance to curb the North’s nuclear weapons program, which appears to be advancing after some early technical difficulties.

Despite China’s open criticism of North Korea, NKNews.org reports that China’s trade with North Korea has reached a record high. CDT previously reported despite the tensions between the two countries due to failed business ventures, North Korea’s trade with China has increased:

[...] Despite crippling sanctions related to the North’s missile and nuclear programs, some of which China has agreed to enforce as a member of the UN Security Council, bilateral trade between the two has increased to a record high of $6.03 billion – twelve times the 2000 total.

Much of this growth has been driven by natural resources, with China remaining the North’s main source of oil, while the North’s primary export to China is minerals, especially iron ore. The North has also begun upgrading its poor information and communication infrastructure, with computer and component imports from China growing an average of 61% per year between 2005 and 2010.

However, there is also a significant consumer aspect that cannot be measured because much of it derives from the underground trade in everything from Chinese electronics and clothes to bootleg copies of movies and tv shows. This trade continues to thrive, despite reported border closures and increased security.

Still, while some analysts saw the most recent nuclear test as a possible breaking point for the Chinese, initial statements point to continuation rather than reexamination of their approach, at least for the time being. China has continued to expand trade with North Korea largely for strategic reasons, and despite the poor investment climate and provocations, the benefits still outweigh the costs. Some of this is based on geopolitical considerations. The most oft-heard argument is that North Korea acts as a buffer state between China and the US-allied South, but this is perhaps a bit overstated. The simpler geopolitical reason remains that, mercurial and unpredictable as it is, North Korea remains China’s only ally in the region, and is not to be discarded easily.

As trade of legal goods increase, The Economist reports that illegal items, such as crystal meth, are also crossing the border:

Fuel, rice, wheat and basic consumer goods all flow legally, usually by lorry over bridges on the Yalu, into North Korea. Imports from the North include minerals, coal, scrap metal and seafood. There is also a thriving black-market trade both ways, usually by boat. This feeds the growing demand for other non-staple products among the new North Koreannouveaux riches. Border police, especially in the North, are known to take bribes to allow illicit trade to pass. One illegal North Korean export causing social problems is crystal meth, a drug known in China as bingdu, or “ice”. If China’s government clamps down on official trade with the North to express its displeasure at the nuclear test, the result will only be more smuggling, says a local who has invested in North Korean minerals. Illicit trade brings its own problems. North Korean border guards shot dead three Chinese smugglers in 2010, and tensions remain.

Meanwhile, as goods flow into North Korea, people continue to flow out. Some come legally to work in North Korean restaurants in Dandong and will return home. Outwardly they are unswervingly loyal—“China is all right, but North Korea is better,” says one—but local Chinese say they are more confident and chatty than before. Many more flee illegally across the river and live in secret in China or try to make it to South Korea, often through a third country. Tesco, a British supermarket chain, has a store in Dandong with a special section offering “Korean food”—mainly imported from South Korea—that an employee says specifically caters to North Koreans.

Wealthy tourists from elsewhere in China pay for boat rides on the river or can even book a trip into North Korea itself, perhaps to remind themselves how far China has come. Others buy cigarettes and trinkets labelled as North Korean but, according to locals, actually made in China. There is sympathy for North Koreans, but no-one wants to miss a good business opportunity.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: North Korea, North Korea nuclear, North Korea trade, nuclear testing, trade
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Protesting North Korea’s nuclear tests in Harbin, China.

After North Korea’s nuclear test yesterday, Chinese netizens have voiced concern that radiation could reach across the border. Rumors about nuclear pollution in the northeast continue to surface, but to date the government has issued no formal report. Today, the People’s Daily tried to quell fears on Weibo by reporting the results of Japan’s radiation tests:

@PeoplesDaily: [North Korean Nuclear Test: Japan Has Not Detected Radioactivity] The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology reported on the 13th that following North Korea’s nuclear test, levels of radioactivity measured throughout Japan were the same as before the test. Additionally, Self-Defense Forces aircraft flew in Japanese airspace on the 12th, collecting large amounts of airborne particles, which they delivered to the Japan Chemical Analysis Center, the organization under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology that is entrusted with analyzing the samples. No radioactivity from the nuclear test was detected. via @TopNewsInternational

@人民日报：【朝核试：日本没有监测到放射性物质】日本文部科学省13日宣布，朝鲜进行核试验后，日本全国监测的放射线量数据与核试验前相比没有变化。此外，自卫队飞机12日在日本上空采集大气尘埃，交由文部科学省下属的财团法人日本分析中心进行分析，也没有检测出来自核试验的放射性物质。via@新国际

Instead of calming the public, the People’s Daily only provoked more anger and uncertainty among netizens. People left comments on Weibo asking what Chinese government scientists had to hide:

@UnconventionalChildKing: Excuse me, what about China’s test results? Are they stalling on tests? Or do they not dare to release the results?

@非主流孩子王：请问中国政府的监测结果呢？它就在挨着我们，是没监测？还是不敢公布？

@laodan2010: The People’s Daily is overlooking the common concerns of the Chinese people and isn’t reporting on the state of China’s test results. Meanwhile, it’s announcing Japan’s test results. It really is asking for a tongue-lashing!

@laodan2010：人民日报避开中国人的普遍忧虑，不公布中国监测情况，而左顾言他发布日本的检测，真是找骂！

@SecretlyLaughingPiglet: An explosion occurs on China’s border, but we still have to learn whether or not there is radioactivity from foreign media. Our society and government are truly tragic.

@偷笑的小猪：中国边上爆炸，还得通过外媒获得是否有辐射，这个社会政府悲哀啊

@TheThirdEarl: CCTV journalists reported live from the scene during the U.S. snowstorm, while this is happening right on our national border. I don’t know what high-level or national media think about this, but comparing the two incidents, how can average people tolerate this?

@伯爵-三世：美国暴风雪央视记者现场直播，而这事就在国境边，不知道高层或国家级媒体咋想的，二相比较，叫百姓情何已堪啊

@WangChuan: The People’s Daily cares so much for the Japanese people! It’s Japan’s conscience-in-media.

@王川: 人民日报对日本人民十分关心！是日本的良心报

@SanHeTech: The Chinese government should publicly announce how radiation from North Korea’s nuclear explosion has impacted China. It’s enough that they won’t announce anything themselves, but now they are even deleting online information from the Japanese government. Isn’t that low of them?

@三合技术：朝鲜核爆，对中国核污染如何，中国政府应当公告。自已不公告也就罢了，网上还删除日本政府的消息，这不是缺德吗？

@SuYaoshirley: I demand that detection tests take place in Jilin. We are in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, very close to North Korea, and an unnatural earthquake shook us. If there is nuclear radiation and radioactive pollution, we will have no way of ensuring our physical health!

@苏瑶shirley：强烈要求对吉林进行监测，我们身处延边州地区距离朝鲜最近，非自然地震波及到了我们，如果有核辐射及放射性物质，我们的身体健康将无法得到保证！

@SanHeTech: When we have no enemies, we create them and say that external hostile forces are trying to overthrow the government. When we have enemies, even when they set off nuclear explosions on our doorstep, we still say they’re targeting enemies 80,000 kilometers away and that it doesn’t have a d**n thing to do with us.

@三合技术：没有敌人，制造敌人也要说有境外势力要搞颠覆；有了敌人，即使他们在家门口搞核爆也要说他们是针对八万里以外的敌人，跟自己没鸟事。

Despite chastising North Korea, China’s lukewarm response to the nuclear tests is seen by western analysts as nothing more than a Cold War-style feint.

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Liz Carter.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Japan, Netizen Voices, North Korea, nuclear testing, people's daily, radiation, weibo
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Those old Cold War patterns of great power rivalry, existential fear and buffer states are re-emerging in more complex form today. Beijing is once again locked in a contest with Washington for regional influence, or domination, and Pyongyang is one of its only strategic friends. Xi, would like to demonstrate who has the upper hand in the relationship. He may even enjoy inflicting a modicum of pain. But the gentle tap on the wrist he gave his recalcitrant ally last night – “all sides” should respond “calmly, through talks” – shows the underlying strategic calculus remains unchanged.

In any case, Chinese analysts are convinced that North Korea will not give up its nuclear program, its sole source of leverage, deterrence and self esteem, no matter what threats and incentives China might attempt.

“I don’t think there will be much change in China’s policy towards North Korea,” says Cai Jian, Professor of Korean studies at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University.

“As China grows, the United States adjusts its strategy towards East Asia to deter and encircle China,” he says. “What China needs is the survival and existence of the North Korean regime to help China maintain the regional balance of power.”

An article in the New York Times argues that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are an early test of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy priorities:

…As impatient as China might be with North Korea, there is little chance that the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will move quickly to change the nation’s long-held policy of propping up the walled-off government that has long served as a buffer against closer intrusion by the United States on the Korean Peninsula.

The Chinese military, and to a lesser extent the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, assert strong influence on China’s Korean policy, and both these powerful entities prefer to keep North Korea close at hand, Chinese and American analysts say.

While the People’s Liberation Army does not even conduct military exercises with the North Koreans — the government in the North forbids such contact with outsiders — Chinese military strategists adhere to the doctrine that they cannot afford to abandon their ally, no matter how bad its behavior, analysts here say.

At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party looks upon the North Korean Communist Party — led by Kim Jong-un, the grandson of the nation’s founder — as a fraternal brotherhood. Indeed, relations between the two countries are conducted largely between the two parties rather than through the more normal diplomatic channels between the two foreign ministries.

A post on the Washington Post blog argues that China’s continued support of North Korea comes down to six words: No war, no instability, no nukes.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Cold War, Korean War, North Korea, North Korea nuclear, North Korea relations, PRC history
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