Kim Jong Un didn’t make his first visit abroad as Supreme Leader until March 28, 2018, when he visited Beijing. Unlike his father and grandfather, who made regular pilgrimages to China, Kim Jong Un waited a long time before being invited by Chinese president Xi Jinping. The main reason was the four nuclear tests under Kim’s leadership, which infuriated China. Xi expressed his displeasure by first visiting South Korea, in 2014.
Still, despite China’s irritation at its much poorer, dangerous, and disruptive cousin, Beijing has propped up North Korea for its own security interests. While the Chinese leadership has chastised North Korea for testing nuclear weapons and ICBMs, every Chinese leader since Jiang Zemin believed that strategic dividends far outweighed any liabilities in the Sino–North Korean relationship. Xi Jinping isn’t an exception.
North Korea’s value to China as a buffer against South Korea, and by extension the United States and Japan, has ebbed in recent years because of the enormous disparity in all measures of power between China and North Korea and due to Beijing’s growing ties with Seoul since the early 1990s. Clearly, South Korean, American, and Japanese reactions to a nuclearized North Korea, including greater attention to missile defense and more robust defense modernization programs, are inimical to Chinese interests.
Nevertheless, China’s calculus is that it gains more than it loses from a North Korea that can threaten all of China’s adversaries with nuclear weapons and ICBMs. Moreover, propping up the Kim Jong Un regime serves Chinese interests since Beijing doesn’t want to see either a unified Korea under South Korea’s leadership or a highly destabilized North Korea. Chinese officials and pro-government scholars often criticize North Korea in private settings, but such views hardly represent Beijing’s realpolitik views on North Korea. For China, a North Korea that keeps China’s adversaries at bay highlights Pyongyang’s intrinsic value as a very useful proxy.
Just prior to the first Moon-Kim summit in April 2018, Xi Jinping finally allowed Kim Jong Un to come to Beijing for an official visit in March of that year. Pyongyang was saying that it was prepared to halt nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and as the Moon administration placed the highest of priorities on fostering South-North cooperation, Beijing wanted to reaffirm its leverage over North Korea.
In May 2018 the Global Times—sister paper of the People’s Daily and an influential mouthpiece for the PRC—opined, “China is a crucial driving force of the progress on the peninsula. On the one hand, China’s strength and geopolitical position is obvious to all. On the other, North Korea is a fully independent country.” Yet the next sentence carried the real message: “China does not have a decisive influence on the affairs of the peninsula, yet without China, major decisions in the region can hardly take shape or be implemented in a stable way.”1 As it has done for the past millennium, China was really saying that North Korea—and, for that matter, South Korea—couldn’t move away from China’s imperial shadow.
In that first visit in March 2018, Xi welcomed Kim Jong Un in an indoor ceremony in the Great Hall of the People. Surrounded by a wraparound mural of the Great Wall, Kim stood next to Xi as the head of the Chinese honor guard took six and a half steps toward the dais, legs swinging high with each step. He unsheathed his ceremonial sword and stepped back slightly toward his left, all the while inclining his head toward the two leaders. Xi gestured with his left hand as Kim inspected the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) honor guard.
After the first formal meeting was over, Xi hosted a banquet in Kim’s honor. As the leaders sat down, a video was shown highlighting the “unbreakable bonds” between the PRC and the DPRK. Footage of Kim Il Sung embracing Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping was shown in addition to Kim Jong Il’s bear hugs with former presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. The official North Korean video commemorating this visit shows Kim Jong Un smiling when he sees a video clip of his father’s meeting with Xi.
Korea specialist Fei Su stressed that this visit showed that talk of China’s declining leverage over North Korea was overblown: “The meeting appeased [North Korea’s] only ally, ensured Chinese leverage on North Korea, and helped repair their frosty relations.”2 Fei Su further notes that China should maximize the opportunities resulting from the fact that North Korea has limited security alternatives:
North Korea will need Chinese support to increase its leverage in those negotiations, and under certain conditions, China is willing to oblige in order to ensure Chinese interests are represented even with the North’s other bilateral arrangements. This dynamic was evident during Kim’s first visit to China in March 2018, where both Xi and Kim recognized the development of the China–North Korea friendship as a “strategic choice” and jointly stated that their bond would remain unchanged.3
This bond goes back to July 11, 1961, when North Korea signed the Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty with China, right after signing a similar treaty with the USSR. While the North Korea–USSR treaty became defunct after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Sino–North Korean treaty, which includes a mutual defense clause, has been renewed every twenty years. The latest renewal was in 2001, and there is every indication that in 2021 it will be renewed for another twenty years.
As we have seen, North Korea would not exist, at least not in its present form, had it not been for China’s military intervention in October 1950, when Kim Il Sung’s forces were in retreat and facing certain military defeat. In November 1953, Mao Zedong addressed a North Korean delegation that had come to Beijing to sign an economic and cultural cooperation agreement, and he praised the gallantry of the North Korean people and their resilience. “The Korean people are brave. They can handle suffering; [they are] courageous; [they are] disciplined; [they are] not afraid of hardship,” said Mao, and “we [the Chinese people] cannot match them in these respects. We should learn from [their example].”4 According to Chinese sources, 180,000 Chinese People’s Volunteers died in the Korean War, although actual casualties are likely to be higher.5 Some of the 3 million Chinese troops who fought in the Korean War were former Kuomintang or nationalist forces that fought against the Chinese communists but were captured in mainland China or chose not to escape to Taiwan in 1949. Mao’s own son was killed in that war. Yet in this speech, Mao made the claim that North Korea was helping to save China.
In the fight against imperialist invasion—in the fight against the imperialist’s invasion of China—the Korean people helped us. Without the heroic struggle of the Korean people, China would not be secure. Had the enemy not been beaten back away from the Yalu River, China’s development would not be secure. The Chinese People’s Volunteer Army and the Korean People’s Army, as well as the people of Korea, struggled together and achieved victory together; [our] assistance was mutual. [The victory in the Korean War] helped the Soviet Union, China, and the entire democratic camp, as well as peace loving people all over the world. This point should be taught to the people.6
Over the years, the Sino–North Korean relationship has fluctuated as Pyongyang played Moscow against Beijing in order to maximize its leverage. When Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in February 1956, it caught Kim Il Sung off guard, even as his own cult of personality was reaching new heights; he knew that any similar trend toward demythologization threatened his power. North Korea denounced Moscow’s revisionism and tilted toward Beijing. Throughout the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s and into the 1970s, North Korea hedged between its two major patrons.
After the Soviet collapse, however, North Korea was left with only China. The sharp drop in Soviet aid and North Korea’s famine in the 1990s resulted in even greater dependence on Chinese assistance and trade. In 2016, China accounted for a staggering 92.7 percent share of North Korea’s total trade volume.7 North Korea’s total trade volume decreased by 15 percent from 2016 to 2017, to $5.5 billion ($1.7 billion in exports and $3.8 billion in imports), owing to international sanctions.8 In terms of North Korea–China trade from 2014 to 2018, North Korean exports to China dropped from $2.8 billion to $221 million, and imports from China declined from $4 billion to $2.5 billion.9
Since China accounts for so much of North Korea’s total trade, it makes little sense to compare it with any of North Korea’s other top ten trading partners; the three largest after China are Russia ($77 million), India ($55 million), and the Philippines ($19 million).10
China also helps North Korea to skirt those very international sanctions. A UN report on North Korean sanctions released in September 2017 noted that “the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continued to violate sectoral sanctions through the export of almost all of the commodities prohibited in the resolutions, generating at least $270 million in revenue during the reporting period.”11 The report noted that several UN member states have “wittingly and unwittingly” provided assistance to North Korean front companies and banks. The report provided numerous examples of Chinese banks and commercial entities that have facilitated North Korea’s financial transactions, setting up ledgers and opening North Korean businesses in China, including Hong Kong, although Chinese authorities deny any official knowledge and assert that no Chinese company has the “business authorization and qualification to establish and operate banks in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”12 The UN report noted:
Moreover, foreign companies maintain links with financial institutions of the country established as subsidiaries or joint ventures in violation of the resolutions. Involvement of diplomatic personnel of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in commercial activities and the leasing of embassy property generate substantial revenue and are aided by multiple deceptive financial practices. These illicit financial activities benefit from the lack of appropriate domestic legal and regulatory frameworks which would give effect to the resolutions, including in many States in Asia.13
Officially, despite the fact that almost all of North Korea’s trade, both legal and illicit, goes through China, Beijing insists that it has little leverage over North Korea. Despite such claims, William Newcomb, a former deputy coordinator of the U.S. State Department’s North Korea Working Group, argues, “China has an extraordinarily good security service. I don’t believe for a minute that they don’t know who the North Koreans are and what they’re up to and who’s working with them but we don’t see any kind of follow-up.”14
As North Korea’s only ally and major political and economic sponsor, China enjoys unique leverage over Kim Jong Un. For Xi, the task is to also rope in South Korea—the one country in its immediate periphery that has a robust military alliance with the United States, and the only place on the Asian mainland where U.S. ground troops are stationed.
Since 1992, when China normalized relations with South Korea, bilateral ties between Seoul and Beijing have flourished. China now accounts for 24 percent of South Korean exports and 22 percent of imports, allowing China significant leverage. People-to-people exchanges surged after normalization as well, and many in Seoul began to believe that Beijing had tilted toward Seoul while Pyongyang was busy embarrassing Beijing with increasingly provocative nuclear tests. It’s true that Beijing warmed up to Seoul, but even though China enjoyed significant economic ties with South Korea, that didn’t mean the PRC was willing to drop support for North Korea.
Indeed, China’s heavy-handedness toward South Korea was vividly displayed in Beijing’s vicious opposition to Seoul’s decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system following North Korea’s fifth nuclear test in 2016. China continues to argue that THAAD denigrates China’s counterattack capabilities and thus weakens China’s deterrent capabilities. The depth of Chinese opposition stems from a combination of factors, including a desire to prevent the expansion to South Korea of a de facto ballistic missile defense system that involves the United States and Japan. As one U.S. Sinologist noted:
For most Chinese, the THAAD deployment decision also represents a kind of betrayal by South Korea and a related strengthening of Washington’s overall effort to counter or contain China. The sense of South Korean betrayal (termed by some Chinese as a “stab in the back”) results from the strong Chinese view that, by accepting the THAAD system, a friendly Seoul had joined a growing U.S.-led anti-China security network in Asia centered on an invigorated U.S.-Japan alliance. Despite some ups and downs in recent years, Beijing had viewed Seoul as a developing partner of sorts, a U.S. ally, yes, but more independent than Japan and holding very similar, wary views regarding Japanese defense modernization.15
Seoul and Beijing resolved the THAAD controversy in October 2017, when South Korea agreed to abide by the so-called Three Nos: (1) no additional deployment of THAAD batteries, (2) no participation in a regional missile defense system, and (3) no military alliance between the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
Numerous Chinese officials, including Beijing’s envoys to Seoul, have openly threatened South Korea if it continues to support THAAD deployment. In February 2017, for example, the People’s Daily overseas edition noted, “If THAAD is really deployed in South Korea, then China–South Korea relations will face the possibility of getting ready to cut off diplomatic relations.”16 In the face of unrelenting Chinese political and economic pressures, not to mention Beijing’s gross intervention in South Korean politics, the Moon administration caved in to China’s demands: “Beijing, which claims the system’s radar can be used by the United States to spy on China, retaliated against the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system with unofficial sanctions against the South. Seoul has now agreed to accept military constraints in return for the lifting of those sanctions, creating a worrying precedent for Beijing’s rivals in the region.”17
The biggest opportunity cost arising from Seoul’s capitulation is that no matter what steps South Korea takes to enhance its deterrence and defense posture, such as developing longer-range ballistic missiles or next-generation submarines, China will argue that such measures aren’t acceptable, since they could negatively affect Chinese or North Korean security. While China has regularly condemned North Korea’s nuclear tests, it has never said openly that such tests directly affect South Korean security. Indeed, China has continued to argue that South Korea and the United States shouldn’t overreact to North Korea’s nuclear tests.
China’s desire to enhance its leverage over the two Koreas is hardly surprising, since it has always deemed the Korean Peninsula as part of its “near abroad.” Xi has also calculated that in light of Trump’s increasingly erratic foreign policy, including his sudden move to improve relations with North Korea, a unique opening was available to the PRC: weakening America’s strategic posture on the Korean Peninsula and, by extension, the U.S.-led alliance system in East Asia.
Trump’s rash comments on the need to withdraw U.S. troops from Japan and South Korea during the 2016 campaign and his subsequent claims that these two allies are defense “free riders”—which isn’t true, although Trump never lets facts get in the way—was a godsend for China and North Korea. Jimmy Carter had advocated the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from South Korea when he became president in 1977, but subsequently reversed his position when U.S. intelligence estimates showed the KPA was much larger than previously thought. Unlike Carter, however, Trump sees everything through his own fantasy mind-set and a zero-sum transactional mentality. Now China and North Korea are dealing with a U.S. president who has almost no knowledge or appreciation of history and who insists that alliances are, at best, one-way political, military, and economic burdens that should be fundamentally altered. By June 2018, China’s official media was highlighting the importance of a “brighter” Sino–North Korean relationship. The Huanqui Shibao editorialized on June 19, 2018:
Chairman Kim Jong Un visited China three times in three months; that attests to the ongoing improvement in Sino–North Korean ties, and this is an objective fact. We have to support such a development and believe that there’s no need to think about it in a complicated manner. Regardless of whether one devotes a lot of thought to this issue or imposes several meanings, such an effort is totally useless … the Sino–North Korean relationship is developing very strongly, and the future is bright. The future of the Sino–North Korean relationship is proceeding simultaneously with the future of Northeast Asia. At a minimum, neither North Korea nor China wants either of these two futures to be mutually exclusive. The Sino–North Korean relationship has already emerged from the structures left from the Cold War and embodies this era’s open-mindedness and external cooperation. We hope that countries in the broader world will transmit their friendly support to the Sino–North Korean relationship.18
For Xi Jinping, meeting with Kim Jong Un twice before the June 2018 U.S.–North Korea summit and once immediately thereafter enabled him to demonstrate China’s ongoing influence over North Korea—and also to warn North Korea that Kim has only limited strategic maneuverability.
Furthermore, Beijing wanted to stress the critical Chinese role in shaping Kim’s policies. According to the Global Times, “Chinese media reporting was not subtle on this point—highlighting that China’s dual suspension plan, which consisted of a pause of U.S. military exercise for a freeze in North Korean nuclear testing, was basically adopted in Singapore. According to Chinese media, this demonstrates China’s role as ‘a responsible great power’ and that progress on the Korean nuclear issue ‘is indeed inseparable from China’s efforts.’”19 Moreover, China was able to highlight its bond with North Korea as a symbol of its regional might and as expediting the weakening of the U.S. military presence in and around the Korean Peninsula.
China wants to solidify progress towards a reduced U.S. military presence on the peninsula. Along these lines, the United States stopping joint exercises is only the first step. Beijing will likely begin to push for peace treaty talks that would undermine the legitimacy of a continued U.S. presence on the peninsula. China may even push Kim to bring up the U.S. deployment of the THAAD system to South Korea in the next round of talks, which could put the United States in a tough position.20
“Return of empire” may be the phrase that best describes China’s “new look” toward the Korean Peninsula. For the past thousand years, especially during the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), Korea was a vassal state whose leadership placed the highest of values on emulating China. Because it borders the Middle Kingdom, Korea’s geopolitical fate has always been intertwined with whoever rules mainland China, and no other power has had such a profound impact on Korea.
With the collapse of China’s Qing Dynasty in 1911—just a year after the end of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty—colonization, civil wars, and great-power rivalries and interventions would engulf China and Korea until the middle of the twentieth century. Throughout the period of Japanese colonization, a weakened China continued to interact with various elements of a colonized Korea, including the setting up of the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai in 1919.
After the formation of the two Koreas in 1948 and the PRC in 1949, South Korea had no official ties with China until 1992. The absence of such formal ties with China was a historical aberration. Under Xi Jinping, not only has China regained its global status, but it has begun to show its imperial traditions once more. From Beijing’s perspective, both Seoul and Pyongyang have to be drawn closer to China’s orbit.
A reunified Korea is acceptable so long as it doesn’t impinge upon China’s core national interests. For Xi, ensuring that the two Koreas moved closer to China was just a continuation of long-established historical tradition. China was reminding the two Koreas that in the long run, they have no choice but to accept Chinese hegemony and dominance. Just like the good old imperial days.
In the flurry of shuttle diplomacy that marked developments on the Korean Peninsula in 2018, Russia seemed like the odd man out. Russia’s role on the Korean Peninsula has declined sharply since the heyday of Soviet communism. The most profound change affecting Russia’s strategic calculus not only on the Korean Peninsula but throughout East Asia is the once unthinkable specter of a much more powerful China.
It is true that Vladimir Putin pumped up Russia’s military prowess with irredentist foreign policies such as annexing Crimea, undertaking military intervention in Ukraine, and pressuring the Baltic states. Indeed, according to the U.S. News & World Report’s power rankings for 2017, Russia was second only to the United States, with China just behind it.21 The main reason is geopolitical, since Russia spans the Eurasian landmass, a position that provides it with unique advantages.
Nevertheless, it is a sobering fact that the hard-power gap between Russia and China is irreversible. In 2018, China’s nominal GDP was $12 trillion, and Russia’s was only $1.5 trillion—just about the same as South Korea’s. In per capita GDP, Russia fared better, with $11,000 versus $8,500 for China.
Russia spent $45 billion on defense in 2017, compared with China’s $150 billion (although U.S. estimates of actual Chinese spending are much higher), and while Russia has an advanced defense industrial complex as a legacy from the Soviet era, the Chinese are catching up rapidly. “The building of defence and civil-military science, technology and industrial capabilities intersect two of Xi’s most prized policy priorities: strengthening China’s defence capabilities and making innovation the primary locomotive of China’s long-term development.”22
The creation of the Central Military Commission Science and Technology Commission (CMC-STC) was one major step forward for the Chinese military in pursuing its desire to reach technological parity with, and in time even leap over, the United States. Unlike the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has been at the leading edge of U.S. defense innovation and disruptive technologies, “the CMC-STC is tightly integrated into the PLA hierarchy, with a two-star lieutenant-general in charge, whereas DARPA enjoys considerable autonomy by being outside of the uniformed chain of command.”23
Even if Chinese economic growth slows, perhaps considerably, going into the 2020s, Russia will never catch up economically with China. Given this stark disparity, Putin has attempted to maximize the opportunities made possible by the alignment of strategic interests between Russia and China. In what Putin has called the “Greater Eurasian Partnership,” the idea is to integrate Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). According to Russia’s leading think tank, IMEMO, “The grand project announced by President Vladimir Putin, which seeks to integrate the EEU with the BRI, shows and reinforces the profound interdependence of the Eastern and Eurasian vectors of Russian strategy.”24
Putin is betting that while Russia will never catch up economically with China, the Middle Kingdom can ignore Russia only at its peril. Should bilateral ties worsen and return to acrimonious relations reminiscent of the Sino-Soviet split, Russia would still be powerful enough to force China to reallocate vital military assets along the Sino-Russian border. At a time when China is flexing its muscle in the South China Sea and remains focused on reaching maritime parity with the United States by the late 2020s, the last thing China needs is to have to keep watching its back and worrying about Russian counteroffensives.
It is in such a broad strategic context that Moscow perceives its limited leverage over the Korean Peninsula. Historically, Russia has wanted to maintain a balance of power on the peninsula so that it wouldn’t threaten Russian interests by tilting to any of the other major powers.
This precept survived into the Soviet era. In preparation for the Cairo Conference in 1943, which would address what to do about Korea after Japan’s defeat (with the goal being that “in due course, Korea will become free and independent”), a Soviet diplomatic memorandum noted that Korea might well be under the joint administration of the major powers for a long time. The note stressed the penultimate importance of ensuring that Japan “must be forever excluded from Korea, since a Korea under Japanese rule would be a constant threat to the Far East of the USSR.”25 Central to Russian interests was the emergence of a post-liberation state that didn’t threaten Russia.
The independence of Korea must be effective enough to prevent Korea from being turned into a staging ground for future aggression against the USSR, not only from Japan, but also from any other power which would attempt to put pressure on the USSR from the East. The surest guarantee of the independence of Korea and the security of the USSR in the East would be the establishment of friendly and close relations between the USSR and Korea. This must be reflected in the formation of a Korean government in the future.26
Seventy-four years after that memorandum was written, Russian interests on the Korean Peninsula remain surprisingly consistent. The major caveat is Russia’s severely weakened leverage over the two Koreas compared to the Cold War years, when Moscow enjoyed significant influence over Pyongyang. By enticing the two Koreas to join in developing the Russian Far East, Putin is hoping to deepen Russian influence in Northeast Asia. The peninsula serves as a useful conduit for Russia’s ongoing ambition to develop its sparsely populated Far Eastern region.
Moscow has four main interests vis-à-vis the Korean Peninsula. First, Moscow believes that its overall footprint in Northeast Asia can be enhanced by strengthening ties with North Korea (which has led to Russia being scrutinized for the possible transfer of WMD technologies and component parts to North Korea). Second, Russia can extricate itself partially from Western sanctions by turning its attention to developing the Far Eastern region, and it believes that Japanese and South Korean participation is critical. Third, while Russian-Chinese interests converge at the global level—that is, in terms of joining efforts against the United States—it doesn’t follow that bilateral interests coincide at the regional level. Indeed, because China’s economic power vastly outpaces Russia’s, it is also in Russia’s interest to counterbalance China’s exponentially increasing influence in East Asia. Fourth, Russia sees a need to develop closer security ties among Russia, China, and North Korea in response to the alignment of interests among the United States, South Korea, and Japan.27
Kim Jong Il’s final foreign visit was to Siberia on August 21, 2011, where he met with President Dmitry Medvedev, although at that time the real power behind the throne was former president and then prime minister Putin. At that meeting, initial discussions began on North Korea’s potential participation in a South Korean–North Korean–Russian gas pipeline, which gained traction in June 2012 when Russia wrote off 90 percent of North Korea’s debt, to the tune of $11 billion.28 Contrary to the belief of some that this meant Kim Jong Il was on the cusp of announcing major economic projects with Russia, however, nothing concrete emerged from his visit.29
The heyday of Russian influence on North Korea is irreversibly gone, but Russia can maximize the dividends flowing from three key sources of influence. First, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia, together with China, can swing the vote on any major political change on the Korean Peninsula to protect North Korea’s interests. Although Russia doesn’t have China’s hard power, including military assets in the Far East, it has enough presence to deter South Korea and the United States (as well as Japan) from steps that could be deemed detrimental to North Korean interests. Second, since North Korea wants to lessen its all-pervasive dependence on China, forging stronger political and economic ties with Russia buttresses Pyongyang’s maneuverability. If Kim Jong Un is serious about developing North Korea, Russian energy is essential. Third, strengthening Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow offers North Korea added geopolitical weight. “Overall,” notes Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations, “Russia plays a critical role as a behind-the-scenes negotiator, spoiler, and unholy ally. It is not front and center, but it is central.”30
In November 2018, the Russian news agency TASS reported that Russia’s ambassador to North Korea, Alexander Matsegora, had met with North Korea’s vice foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, and that the two sides agreed that current problems must be resolved “on a phased and synchronized approach”—code suggesting that Russia would be supporting North Korea’s and the PRC’s positions on denuclearization and other issues.31 Russia has argued that sanctions on North Korea must be reduced before progress is made on denuclearization.
“It is becoming more and more important to elaborate security guarantees,” said Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Furthermore, “reliable international security mechanisms are necessary in the region to prevent recurrence of the situation which has developed around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program.”32 Russia continues to claim that Washington’s desire for Pyongyang to disarm itself prior to real negotiations is a pipe dream.
Anton Khlopkov, director of Russia’s Center for Energy and Security Studies, has said that “Washington and South Korea need to understand that Pyongyang’s unilateral back-down is totally ruled out.” He also noted that “the scenario suggested by a number of South Korean experts, under which North Korea gives up its nuclear ambitions and South Korea remains under the US nuclear umbrella, is unrealistic.”33
Moscow’s greatest strength is its relatively equal relationship with both North Korea and South Korea. While the United States, Japan, and China maintain closer ties with one side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) or the other, Russia has maintained steady economic and political relations with both sides of the DMZ.… Ultimately, Russia’s most important and often overlooked role with regard to North Korea may be its shared willingness to use chemical weapons. While the United States and the rest of the world have focused attention on addressing the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, North Korea’s stockpile of chemical weapons and failure to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention also pose a significant threat to global security.34
Given the disparities in Chinese and Russian power, Moscow has no illusions that it can ever displace China on the Korean Peninsula. What Moscow realizes, however, is that it has a boutique role to play vis-à-vis the two Koreas.
For example, Putin has been openly critical of international sanctions on North Korea. (Russia itself, of course, is under Western sanctions.) “Sanctions of any kind would now be useless and ineffective,” said Putin in September 2017, referring to international responses to North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test, and he emphasized that North Koreans would “rather eat grass than abandon their [nuclear weapons] programmes unless they feel secure.”35
Moreover, despite Western criticism of human rights abuses in Russia, Putin has also continued to support the stationing of North Korean workers in Russia—a key source of hard-currency earnings for Kim Jong Un. Russia has also followed North Korea’s lead in repatriating North Korean escapees. In November 2018, press reports said that Russia arrested, tried, and repatriated a former North Korean soldier, twenty-nine-year-old Jun Kyung Chul, back to North Korea, where he is likely to face imprisonment in a gulag for his crimes.36
By the summer of 2018, Russia was extending an open invitation to Kim Jong Un. “I would like to re-extend, and ask you to convey to the leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un, our invitation to visit Russia,” said Putin in a meeting with Kim Yong Nam, then chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea and the nominal head of state.37 On April 25, 2019, Putin met with Kim in Vladivostok for their first face-to-face meeting. Perhaps the only interesting development during the summit was that the famously tardy Putin had to wait thirty minutes for Kim to arrive. Russia’s main news agency TASS paraphrased Alexei Maslov, head of the School of Asian Studies at the Higher School of Economics, who said that while the summit was important for the leaders to sound each other out, “the meeting had no formal results even in the form of a communique.”38 Putin aired his support for reviving the six-party talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem, but he stressed that North Koreans need a “guarantee about their security. That’s it. All of us together need to think about [it].”39 Overall, however, the summit was a letdown. “In what may be a sign that North Korea and Russia did not see eye-to-eye on all issues discussed, state media fell short of saying the two sides reached complete consensus. It said the two leaders during their one-on-one meeting ‘reached satisfactory consensus on imminent issues of cooperation.’”40
Elizabeth Economy writes, “Like China, [Russia] has its own set of complicated interests with regard to North Korea that do not align fully with those of the United States. Yet Moscow cannot be ignored. Despite its relatively low public profile as a player in the North Korea negotiations, Russia’s behind-the-scenes ability to throw a wrench in the process should not be underestimated.”41
Russia doesn’t need to have overwhelming influence over North Korea, as it did from the 1950s until the 1970s. The global pecking order has changed, and with it Russia’s strategic influence and importance. But Russia still has plenty of cachet in North Korea, and by extension the Korean Peninsula, where its interests and voices can’t be ignored.
Russia is in exactly the spot it wants to be in: allowing China to pull much of the weight on the Korean Peninsula, thereby minimizing its political and military exposure; complicating American (and South Korean) responses to major crises on the Korean Peninsula with the possibility of joint Sino-Russian actions; expediting the decoupling of the United States from Japan and South Korea; and exercising whatever limited power it has to shape the contours of a future unified Korea. Given the compatibility of Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests, so long as Russia and China don’t collide on the Korean Peninsula, Russia can live with letting China take the lead.
Among all of Northeast Asia’s key stakeholders, Japan has been the most vocal about North Korea’s growing threat envelope. North Korea’s provocations against Japan are manifest, including missiles that have fallen into Japanese waters or traversed Japanese airspace. Next to the United States, Japan has received the lion’s share of North Korea’s ire.
The Japanese–North Korean relationship is fraught with historical legacies and unresolved issues. Moreover, the complexity of Japanese policy toward the Korean Peninsula is even more pronounced because of Tokyo’s critically important but also deeply divisive relationship with Seoul. Indeed, no other bilateral relationship between two mature, advanced democracies with centuries of interaction is as fragile and politically volatile.
As Brad Glosserman writes, “Even in the face of a potentially existential threat from North Korea, the relations between the two countries are better characterized as contentious rather than cooperative. Those frictions threaten to undermine the united front essential to counter and contain North Korea and change its behavior.”42 National identities built upon very strong ethnocentric worldviews in both countries, compounded by deeply embedded notions of victimization in South Korea, have contributed further to icy bilateral relations.
Seoul has a progressive government, and the left in South Korea has historically been antagonistic toward the United States, used Japan as a cudgel in domestic political battles, and sought common cause with Pyongyang in the name of a united Korea. Only progressive presidents have met with North Korean leaders and Japan worries that Moon Jae-in will be tempted to follow in their footsteps, even if it means breaking with Washington and Tokyo and abandoning the united front that is pressuring Pyongyang to change its behavior.43
For the United States, the fact that the relationship between its two most important allies in Asia, Japan and South Korea, is marked by bitter historical legacies and contrasting threat perceptions vis-à-vis North Korea has become a major impediment to sustaining and strengthening trilateral security cooperation.
In South Korea, domestic politics is rarely separate from its Japan policy. The deep scar left by Japan’s brutal colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945 is understandable from a South Korean perspective (and also from a North Korean one, although Pyongyang heavily propagandizes its anti-Japanese stance). Despite the closest of ties and irreversible linkages between South Korea and Japan, both sides spin their joint history for political ends. South Koreans argue that while successive Japanese governments have apologized for their colonial rule, the Japanese have never fully come to accept responsibility for wartime atrocities such as using Korean sex slaves to service members of the Japanese military and using forced laborers for wartime production.
Japan implemented harsh and restrictive policies towards the Korean people throughout the colonial period, with policies of forcible assimilation hitting a peak as Japan expanded its empire during the 1930s and 40s. As Japan waged war throughout Asia and the Pacific, its government and military began to recruit Koreans (often coercively) to work at jobs left behind by Japanese conscripts, as well as Korean women to serve soldiers at military installations across its empire. Tokyo also sought to forcibly assimilate Koreans into Japanese culture by assigning Koreans Japanese names, promoting the exclusive use of the Japanese language, and banning the teaching of Korea’s language and history.44
The Japanese maintain that the 1965 basic treaty that normalized relations between Tokyo and Seoul covers all actions prior to 1945 and that Seoul is constantly moving the goalposts on the issues of so-called comfort women and forced labor. As Japan has become more conservative, particularly under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and leans toward a more robust defense posture, South Korea’s diplomatic bandwidth has fluctuated widely depending on whether a leftist or a rightist government is in power. Conservatives highlight the importance of maintaining key security ties with Japan and, to the extent possible, deepening trilateral security cooperation among the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
This doesn’t mean that previous conservative governments neglected historical issues. Former president Lee Myung-bak’s visit to Dokdo in August 2012, the first visit to that island by a South Korean president, was highly symbolic, since while South Korea has jurisdiction and control over Dokdo, Japan also claims rights over the island, which it refers to as Takeshima. As he stepped off the presidential helicopter, Lee remarked, “Dokdo is an invaluable place that must be defended at all costs.”45 Japanese foreign minister Koichiro Gemba then called Lee’s visit “utterly unacceptable,” and Tokyo temporarily recalled its ambassador to Seoul.
Japanese claims on Dokdo are spurious. “This is clearly a Korean island, it has effective control,” said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus. “The Japanese government is very blind to the historical, psychological background to this.”46
When she was in office, President Park Geun-hye didn’t hold any bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Abe for nearly three years, although her government signed a landmark agreement with Japan on the comfort women issue in December 2015. In that deal—hailed by the United States—Seoul and Tokyo agreed to form a Reconciliation and Healing Foundation with a $9 million payout by the Japanese government. However, the Moon administration decided to replace that money with its own funds.47 While technically the agreement is still in force, for all practical purposes it has been nullified by the Moon government.
Another major issue that has further divided Seoul-Tokyo relations is the South Korean Supreme Court’s decision in November 2018 that Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries must compensate any surviving individuals who were forced laborers during World War II. Earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled that Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation were liable for wartime forced labor too.48 Tokyo responded forcefully, insisting that “all claims arising from the years of Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula were ‘settled completely and finally’ in the June 1965 treaty.”49 The Japanese Foreign Ministry announced after the ruling:
Japan once again conveys to the Republic of Korea its position as elaborated above, and strongly demands that the Republic of Korea take appropriate measures, including immediate actions to remedy such breach of international law.… Furthermore, if appropriate measures are not taken immediately, Japan will continue to examine all possible options, including international adjudication and counter measures, and take resolute actions accordingly from the standpoint of, inter alia, protecting the legitimate business activities by Japanese companies.50
While the Korean Supreme Court argued that the 1965 agreement between South Korea and Japan didn’t cover forced laborers, the South Korean foreign ministry, in order to avoid a worsening of bilateral relations with Japan, has been working to minimize the fallout with Tokyo. On November 7, 2018, South Korean prime minister Lee Nak-yeon issued a formal statement noting that “the judiciary’s ruling is not a diplomatic issue. The judiciary hands down legal rulings and it is a fundamental precept of democracy of a government’s non-interference in the judiciary’s decisions. I believe that Japanese leaders are also aware of this point.”51
From a Japanese perspective, the security environment around Japan has worsened since the end of the Cold War due to the convergence of three major threats: the accelerated rise of China and the PLA’s unparalleled power projection capabilities in the East China Sea and the South China Sea; North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, with mature ballistic missile capabilities that endanger Japanese security; and a Sino-Russian strategic entente coming on the heels of Russia’s revamping of its military forces.
More recently, Japan’s relationship with the United States has soured because of Trump’s imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Japan and his incessant harping about Japan and South Korea as defense free riders. As a matter of fact, Japan assumes more than 85 percent of the costs of maintaining U.S. Forces Japan and commits $1.7 billion annually for host nation support based on the Special Measures Agreement.52
In addition, Japan is a major importer of U.S. arms. From 1950 to 2017, Japan imported a total of $64 billion in arms, and almost all of them were U.S. purchases.53 In 2017, Japan imported $4.8 billion in U.S. arms (the corresponding figure for South Korea was $4.5 billion).54
On December 18, 2018, the Japanese government announced the newest Mid-Term Defense Program (MTDP), earmarking some $243 billion for defense procurements over the next five years. “The biggest news to come out of the MTDP was the confirmation that Japan will seek to add to its buy of an additional 105 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, which would include 42 F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing aircraft, although this was not much of a surprise.”55
While Japan is very troubled by China’s accelerated military buildup, particularly the PLA’s ability to conduct offensive operations in and around the Senkaku Islands (also claimed by China, which refers to them as the Diaoyu Islands), Tokyo perceives a greater threat from North Korea’s WMD programs. Six nuclear tests and more than forty ballistic missile tests since 2016 “pose an unprecedentedly serious and imminent threat to the security of Japan,” noted Japan’s defense ministry in its Defense White Paper 2018.56 The report also stated that “North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons cannot be tolerated. At the same time, sufficient attention needs to be paid to the development and deployment of ballistic missiles, the military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula, and the proliferation of WMDs and ballistic missiles by North Korea.”57
The Japanese defense ministry announced a military budget of $46 billion for FY2019, and, combined with Japan’s increasingly alarmed views on Chinese defense, “Abe has cited Pyongyang’s race to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles as proof that Japan must bolster its defence capabilities and loosen some of the constitutional shackles imposed after the second world war on its self-defence forces.”58 These two threats have resulted in approval of the biggest defense budget in history for FY2019. “This will be the sixth consecutive year that the defense budget has risen, with the amounts sharply increasing since Abe took office in 2012. But rather than a reflection of the prime minister’s desire to revise Japan’s pacifist, war renouncing constitution, the increase is more in response to mounting military tensions in East Asia, chief among them North Korea’s increasingly provocative behavior.”59
In one of the most symbolic demonstrations of Japan’s military muscle, the Japanese government also decided to put into service two Izumo-class aircraft carriers manned with F-35 fighters. These are the largest ships in the Maritime Self-Defense Force. “The review of the new defense guideline is extremely meaningful to show the Japanese people and the world what is truly necessary in our defense to protect the people and to serve as the cornerstone of the future” for the Japan Self-Defense Forces, said chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga.60
The Japan Times noted right after the June 2018 Trump-Kim Singapore summit that Japan needed to maximize the opportunities resulting from the reduction in tensions involving North Korea. Trump’s assurances notwithstanding, North Korea continues to threaten Japan.61 In a rebuke to Trump, the paper wrote:
Trump’s penchant for hyperbole and his indifference to detail (and often facts themselves) is sufficiently well established that his claim upon returning from the Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that “there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea” was roundly dismissed. Skepticism was deserved: The Singapore joint statement was striking in its lack of detail and Pyongyang has not made any gestures that indicate a change in its thinking about nuclear weapons.62
Critics of Japan’s increased defense budget, the right to collective defense, and ongoing force modernization programs, such as China, have criticized Japan roundly for exploiting the North Korean threat as a cover for Tokyo’s militarization. Given South Korea’s overlapping linkages and shared interests with Japan, Seoul has been much more constrained in questioning Japan’s growing power projection capabilities. Still, not only is Abe on the verge of becoming the longest-serving postwar Japanese prime minister, but he has ushered in key defense policy changes that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Responding militarily to North Korea’s threat, however, is just one component of Japan’s North Korea policy. North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s to teach North Korean spies about Japanese culture and language is arguably the single most important unresolved dispute, and one that resonates strongly with the Japanese public. In November 1977, Japanese middle school student Megumi Yokota was kidnapped by North Korean agents, and the Japanese government believes that abductions occurred until the early 1980s. In May 1997, the Japanese government officially noted a “strong possibility” that ten Japanese nationals had been kidnapped by North Korea.63 When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang for a one-day meeting with Kim Jong Il in September 2002, Kim admitted for the first time that “rogue agents” had indeed kidnapped Japanese nationals, giving the number as thirteen; Kim said eight had died and five were still alive. Koizumi secured the release of those five, who were reunited with their parents in May 2004.64
Japan held a number of discussions with North Korea over the abductee issue, but no final resolution was achieved. As tensions mounted after North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, efforts at normalizing Japan–North Korea relations floundered. Pyongyang has continued to insist that the abductee issue isn’t a central impediment to normalizing ties with Tokyo. Rather, it argues that Japan has to come clean on its own role during the colonial period. Speaking at a conference in Seoul in November 2018, Ri Jong Hyok, vice chairman of the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee—one of North Korea’s many front organizations—stated that “we, the entire Korean people, strongly demand Japan’s sincere and frank reflection, apology, and sufficient compensation” and harshly criticized Japan for “crimes that violated human rights.”65
Japan has been a key actor in calling out North Korea for its blatant human rights abuses in recent years. North Korea’s KCNA lambasted Japan in October 2018 after Japan pushed for a UN human rights resolution focusing on North Korean abuses: “It is a mockery and insult to justice and human rights that Japan, which committed the unethical crimes against the Korean nation and other Asian countries but has made no apology for them, is taking the lead in the ‘human rights’ campaign.”66
Prime Minister Abe has tried to engage North Korea in order to retain Japan’s leverage amid ongoing developments, even as other powers expend significant political capital on dialogue with North Korea. But Trump’s erratic North Korea policy has weakened the international community’s ability to maintain a hardline posture. In a scathing diatribe, the North Korean party newspaper Rodong Sinmun wrote that Japan “has been left alone in the region, being branded as a country of pygmy politicians engaged in abnormal view on things and phenomena, anachronistic thought and stupid and unbecoming conduct.”67
Japan’s longer-term interests on the Korean Peninsula are shaped by how a unified Korea would interact with Japan and the extent to which such a state could negatively affect Japan’s core interests. Tokyo’s preference is for a unified Korea that is democratic, with a flourishing market economy, multiple linkages with the global community, and strong support for a liberal international order. In short, Japan wants a unified Korea that is an extension of the ROK.
Whether a unified Korea would actually illustrate such traits is going to depend critically on the survivability of North Korea, the process by which unification occurs, the degree to which China opts to intervene, the sustainability of American policy, and South Korea’s depth of political will and strategic acumen. In none of these areas, however, does Japan have critical leverage, though it does have an indirect influence on America’s role in the unification process. Its limited capacity is almost wholly a product of Japan’s historical legacy. If there is a common theme that resonates in the two Koreas, it is that Japan should have no direct role in the process leading up to unification. The depth of anti-Japanese sentiment is such that, short of a North Korean attack on South Korea, which would trigger Japan’s role as the most important rear base for U.S. military operations, none of the key actors wants Japanese involvement.
Historically, Japan has viewed the Korean Peninsula as a dagger pointed toward Japan—not by virtue of Korean power, but as an extension of Chinese power. Instability on the peninsula was deemed anathema to Japanese interests, and Tokyo chose to expand its zone of operations into Korea by fighting two major wars: the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Both resulted in Japanese victories and enabled Japan first to assume control of Korean foreign and defense policies in 1905 and then, in 1910, to annex Korea outright.
For the time being, though, Japan sees North Korea as its most existential external threat. “Threat perceptions are greater over North Korea today than the Soviet Union during the Cold War,” writes Kazuto Suzuki of Hokkaido University, and he cites four reasons: “the unpredictability of Kim Jong-un’s regime; the possible ‘de-coupling’ of the US-Japan alliance; fear of a massive refugee crisis; and the potential for increased Chinese influence in the event of conflict.”68
Abe’s preferred strategy involves beefing up Japan’s military capabilities not only to counter the PLA’s leapfrogging strategies but also to ensure that should a major North Korean crisis develop, Japan will have credible military options. As the world’s third-largest economic power, Japan has a vital role to play in assisting North Korea’s denuclearization. Estimates of how much it would cost to dismantle North Korea’s WMD and pave the way for reconstructing North Korea vary widely depending on timelines and scenarios, but some financial analysts have put the price tag at $1 trillion over a decade, including funds for secure dismantlement, the construction of light water reactors, and economic assistance.69
“I think it would be fair to say that dismantling and cleanup of a substantial part of the North Korean nuclear complex (not even considering the missile complex) would cost many billions and take 10 years or so,” said Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University nuclear specialist who visited the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2010.70 In response to Trump’s assertion that Japan and South Korea should assume the lion’s share of denuclearization costs, Japan has pledged to do its part.
For Japan, the worst possible outcome on the Korean Peninsula is a unified Korea ruled by the North—highly unlikely, but not totally impossible. Hence, sustaining the status quo while managing North Korea’s nuclear and WMD threats is the best option for Tokyo. Developments on the Korean Peninsula have always had a direct bearing on Japanese security, and Tokyo wants a capabilities-based Korea policy that sufficiently protects Japan’s core interests regardless of the scenario. At a time when bilateral ties with Washington are at an all-time low due to Trump’s incompetence, Japan’s anxiety will continue to remain high and lead to a greater reliance on its own capabilities.
The slogan for the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command is katchi kapshida, “Let’s go together,” which symbolizes the uniqueness of the most integrated military partnership currently in operation. Since the Korean War, the Korean-American alliance has evolved from South Korea’s near-total dependence on the United States to a much more equal partnership. Seoul’s rise from the bottom of the economic barrel to the eleventh-largest economy in the world wouldn’t have been possible without a robust alliance that kept North Korea at bay.
What is truly remarkable about the alliance, however, is that it was neither designed nor intended to be so successful. History shows how the United States became a vital but accidental stakeholder on the Korean Peninsula.
In 1905, following Washington’s mediation in the Russo-Japanese War, the United States agreed with Japan that Korea’s foreign and defense policies would henceforth be administered by Japan. Five years later, Korea was colonized by Japan. In effect, Washington washed its hands of Korea. This is seen by many Koreans as a major diplomatic blunder by the United States, but from Washington’s perspective, Korea was not a vital interest in the Far East at that time.
Having lost its power to conduct foreign relations, Korea made last-ditch efforts to inform the United States that the treaty of November 1905 had been signed under duress. When special envoy “without credentials” Min Young-chan called on Secretary of State Elihu Root in December 1905, he was informed that the official Korean chargé d’affaires had already formally acknowledged the United States’ withdrawal of its ambassador to Korea.”71 Root told Min:
In view of this official communication, it is difficult to see how the Government of the United States can proceed in any manner upon the entirely different view of the facts which you tell us personally you have been led to take by the information which you have received. It is to be observed, moreover, that the official communications from the Japanese Government agree with the official communications from the Korean Government, and are quite inconsistent with your information.… Under all these circumstances, I feel bound to advise you that the Government of the United States does not consider that any good purpose would be subserved by taking notice of your statements.72
The former Korean legation building in Washington, D.C., was bought by the Japanese government for $5 in 1910 and promptly sold off. After the liberation of Korea from Japanese control in August 1945, a trusteeship was imposed for three years by the United States and the Soviet Union through their respective zones of occupation across the 38th parallel. On January 12, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave what many consider to be the most fateful speech prior to the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. Referencing the need to protect Japan in the aftermath of its defeat and disarmament, Acheson stated:
I can assure you that there is no intention of any sort of abandoning or weakening the defenses of Japan and that whatever arrangements are to be made either through permanent settlement or otherwise, that defense must and shall be maintained.… This defensive perimeter runs along the Aleutians to Japan and then goes to the Ryukyus. We hold important defense positions in the Ryukyu Islands, and those we will continue to hold. In the interest of the population of the Ryukyu Islands, we will at an appropriate time offer to hold these islands under trusteeship of the United Nations. But they are essential parts of the defensive perimeter of the Pacific, and they must and will be held.… So far as the military security of other areas in the Pacific is concerned, it must be clear that no person can guarantee these areas against military attack. But it must also be clear that such a guarantee is hardly sensible or necessary within the realm of practical relationship.73
As noted in Chapter Four, Kim Il Sung was eager to get approval from Stalin and Mao, but especially the former, to launch an attack against the South. Acheson’s speech didn’t give the green light for a North Korean invasion. Rather, it was part of a series of events that convinced Kim, and later Stalin, that the United States didn’t consider Korea a central strategic asset. In 1949, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that all U.S. troops should be withdrawn from South Korea except for a handful of military advisors. In late 1949, the U.S. House of Representatives opted to cut vital economic aid to South Korea, prompting the ROK government to ask the Truman administration to reverse the House decision.
Militarily, the nascent South Korean armed forces were supplied and trained by the United States, but they were in no shape to defend South Korea against a North Korean attack, much less deter one. The Korea Military Advisory Group, which supervised U.S. military aid to South Korea, reported in January 1950 that military assistance to South Korea would have to be limited to $9.8 million.74
Much more important, however, was the prevailing belief that the South Korean military shouldn’t be too strong, lest it become a threat to the North. “The objective of this program is to strengthen the existing Security Forces without providing means for an increase in numerical strength,” wrote Brigadier General W. L. Roberts, head of the Korea Military Advisory Group. The equipment that was being provided was “an attempt to equalize the range and weight of weapons in South Korea with those known to be in North Korea.”75
Roberts did stress, however, the critical importance of providing combat aircraft to the South Korean forces, since those were thought to be “absolutely necessary for the defense of South Korea.”76 When war broke out in June 1950, however, the ROK military didn’t have a single fighter airplane. Combined, all of these developments led Kim Il Sung to think that he didn’t really have to worry about massive and immediate American military intervention on behalf of South Korea.
Historian Kathryn Weathersby writes:
In the spring of 1950 Stalin’s policy toward Korea took an abrupt turn. During meetings with Kim Il Sung in Moscow in April, Stalin approved Kim’s plan to reunify the country by military means and agreed to provide the necessary supplies and equipment for the operation. The plan to launch the assault on South Korea was Kim’s initiative, not Stalin’s. The Soviet leader finally agreed to support the undertaking only after repeated requests from Kim. Furthermore, Stalin’s purpose was not to test American resolve; on the contrary, he approved the plan only after having been assured that the United States would not intervene.77
The Truman administration wanted to avoid being pulled into another major Asian war, an attitude Acheson supported. At the same time, however, once Kim Il Sung attacked South Korea, Truman felt compelled to respond forcefully because of the prevailing view that such an attack could be a harbinger of equally serious attacks against a young NATO in Western Europe.
The urgency of coping with the North Korean nuclear issue has dominated U.S. policy toward the Korean Peninsula since the early 1990s. What is happening now, however, is equally if not more compelling: the convergence of powerful political forces reminiscent of the early 1900s and late 1940s that changed the course of Korean history, and America’s involvement in that journey.
On June 16, 2009, presidents Barack Obama and Lee Myung-bak released a joint statement that outlined what type of a unified Korea was desirable, the first time the leaders of the United States and South Korea had outlined such a vision: “Through our Alliance we aim to build a better future for all people on the Korean Peninsula, establishing a durable peace on the Peninsula and leading to peaceful reunification on the principles of free democracy and a market economy.”78 South Korea’s progressives criticized the statement for stating explicitly that a unified Korea should be a free democracy; they were upset because such a goal implies the collapse of North Korea or unification by absorption.
As important as the North Korean nuclear issue is, however, the United States has much wider and deeper interests on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea is the only country in mainland Asia where U.S. forces are deployed, and China, Russia, and North Korea have long wanted to see those forces withdrawn. Decoupling South Korea from the United States is another shared interest. Deterring a second Korean War remains an essential element of U.S. strategy on the Korean Peninsula and enables the United States to maintain a longer-term military footprint.
The most vexing task confronting the United States is how it would manage the transition from the existing status quo to a unified Korea. On the nuclear front, Washington, Beijing, and Moscow share a common interest in ensuring denuclearization and preventing South Korea from inheriting nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.
A far more contentious issue is how each of the major powers would respond to the dynamic forces involved in a relatively gradual unification process—or, alternatively, to the high political volatility and uncertainty that would be triggered if there was massive political disruption in North Korea, such as would accompany regime collapse. In the latter case, the final outcome would be shaped by a combination of factors, such as the degree of military intervention by the major powers, the depth of South Korean preparation and willingness to execute rapid responses, and of course the aftermath of the North Korean implosion. It’s critical to bear in mind that even if regime collapse occurs in the North, it doesn’t mean that millions of North Koreans will rush to the South.
The worst outcome of Korean unification for China and Russia would be unification along the lines of the German model—that is, absorption of the North by the South. For the United States, by contrast, a Korean Peninsula led by the ROK is the preferred outcome. This is hardly assured, however. Chinese intervention in the case of a major North Korean crisis is virtually inevitable. Furthermore, prospects for joint Chinese-Russian operations in support of North Korea or against the ROK and the United States also can’t be ruled out. From September 11 through September 17, 2018, Russia held the Vostok (Asia) 2018 military games, with 297,000 Russian forces, 36,000 pieces of equipment, and more than 1,000 combat aircraft—72 percent of all combat-capable Russian aircraft. What made this exercise noteworthy was the participation of 3,200 PLA troops and an unknown number of Mongolian forces.79 According to The Hill, this drill covered Russia’s nine military districts and was the biggest military exercise since Zapad-1981, which simulated the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Poland.
China’s presence allowed the Russian armed forces to judge in situ the level of preparedness and adaptation to modern warfare of a country that has not had combat experience in decades, and draw conclusions. The same can be said for Beijing, as there are many sectors where both armies can learn from each other and explore further military and technical cooperation. Vostok also showed off Russia’s “combat-proven” military hardware which could help it secure additional defence contracts with Beijing.80
Given the historical mistrust between Russia and China and growing PLA capabilities, there is no assurance that these two major powers would actually conduct joint military operations in a real crisis. Nevertheless, in the event of substantial turbulence in North Korea stemming from regime collapse or a rapid deterioration in inter-Korean ties leading to significant military clashes, the United States can no longer assume that there won’t be military pushback by China, Russia, or both.
None of the key scenarios leading up to a unified Korea is going to be easy. Peaceful integration is the most desirable outcome but at the same time the most unlikely. If a North Korean collapse occurs, it won’t look like the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 and 1990. And if North Korea launches another invasion, it would be followed by massive U.S. and South Korean retaliation, possibly spurring Pyongyang to go for broke and use nuclear weapons. Again, the United States must consider Chinese or even Russian military intervention, and to a lesser extent involvement by Japan, in any serious crisis management scenarios.
Significant Sino-American cooperation on major contingencies on the Korean Peninsula is going to be essential in order to avoid unwanted spillovers. For China, a unified Korea that has a robust military alliance with the United States is unacceptable, just as a unified Korea under North Korea is unacceptable to the United States. Narrowing this gap with minimal friction is going to pose the greatest challenge to U.S. diplomacy and crisis management since the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950.
Managing an outcome favorable to the ROK and the United States is going to depend crucially on the degree of political cooperation between Seoul and Washington, but such cooperation is by no means a certainty. In the post–Korean War era, the United States has faced numerous Korea-related crises, such as the capture of the USS Pueblo by North Korea in 1969; the murder of two American soldiers in Panmunjom by North Korean soldiers in 1976; the assassination of Park Chung-hee in 1979 and the ensuing political turmoil in South Korea; the killing of eighteen senior ROK officials in Rangoon, Burma, by North Korean agents in 1983; and the downing of Korean Air Lines flight 007 also in 1983 by the Soviet Union.
Deterring major conflict on the Korean Peninsula has been the cornerstone of U.S. policy since the middle of the twentieth century, but ever since North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, and even more so since its September 2017 hydrogen bomb test, deterrence has become markedly more difficult. The North Korean nuclear crisis has been one of the longest-running crises in the post–Cold War era; the specter of massive political dislocation in the event of a North Korean collapse means an exponential increase in all sorts of risks on top of the nuclear threat.
Three dimensions need to be taken into account in thinking about how the United States would cope with a major Korean crisis. First, while the United States likes to think of German unification as providing a model for Korea, that model isn’t really applicable in the Korean context. The unification of West Germany and East Germany occurred just before the collapse of the Soviet Union and at the height of American power. In Korea, unification is going to occur, if it occurs at all, when China is at the apex of its power. This single geopolitical factor alone is a potential game changer on the Korean Peninsula.
Second, while the United States has unsurpassed hard power at its disposal, North Korea has no plans to go quietly. If North Korea instigates another war, there is no doubt that it will be defeated, but at a huge cost for South Korea and the United States. Clearly, one can fall into the trap of overestimating the KPA’s capabilities given its sheer numerical advantages on top of its WMD arsenal. But just as dangerous is overestimating the advantages of superior U.S. military technologies, as seen in the costly counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations needed against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Third, the geopolitical stakes are far greater than they were with German unification given the possibility of Chinese or Russian intervention in a major Korean crisis. Not since the Korean War has the United States fought the PLA, but the Chinese military of the early 1950s was a mere shadow of what it is today. The United States has to play three-dimensional chess on the Korean Peninsula in order to achieve four simultaneous goals: ensuring maximum operational jointness between U.S. and ROK forces throughout the phases of conflict or major crises, deterring North Korea’s potential use of nuclear weapons, avoiding military clashes with China (and to a lesser extent with Russia) but prevailing if the United States is forced to engage, and maximizing the opportunities for a political settlement that favors American and South Korean interests while not denigrating China’s core security concerns.
If a major crisis breaks out in North Korea over the next several years, what would be required of the United States is a whole-of-government effort. Political awareness and agility at the highest levels of leadership, an abiding appreciation of core institutions, centrality of alliance management, and, most important, a constant focus on creating a unified Korea that preserves liberty and democracy will be essential. The United States and South Korea can’t afford to fail.