Why North Korea’s nukes?

The ongoing nuclear goings-on in North Korean have been greeted with a mixture of incredulity, outrage, confusion, and even downright panic. Despite such widely variant reactions, it is a commonplace that the Pyongyang’s nuclear program is aimed squarely at the United States and its allies.   This is undoubtedly true.  Pyongyang certainly seeks by its threats to engender a fresh round of concessions, such as occurred in 1998.   However, this is not the full story – there is a rather more unusual answer to be had if one commits oneself to fully answering the question: Why?

The solution to this most important of queries is found when one considers the nature of Kim Jong-Il’s regime.  Kim is a communist dictator of a particularly odious stripe – he is the political first cousin of tyrants like Lenin, Stalin and Mao.  Illegitimate, Marxist-Leninist governments like Kim’s are extremely fragile, and they signal their awareness of this fact by the manner in which they ruthlessly quash all domestic dissent.   This preoccupation with internal security also extends to foreign affairs.  "Counterintelligence states" states like North Korea make it a matter of first resort to eliminate or mitigate any foreign threats to their continued rule.  Day after day, Pyongyang’s propaganda apparatus avers that the greatest such threat to the Kim Dynasty is the U.S., the hulking capitalist power that is "the enemy of the North Korean people."

Such an assertion does not stand up to logic for two critical reasons.  First, distance and force structures inhibit the U.S. from making any immediate moves against Kim’s regime.  While we could undoubtedly do great damage to the North through air strikes, this author doubts whether our South Korean garrisons are powerful enough to overrun and occupy the North, no matter what Kim says.  A second reason is political will.  The brand-new 109th Congress is in no mood to support further military endeavors anywhere in the world, and will likely work to undercut any aggressive administration moves.  Thus lacking both the way and the will to wage the war that Kim Jong-Il allegedly fears, is seems highly unlikely that this country poses a proximate mortal threat to North Korea.

There is, however, a country that surely has Kim shaking in his shoes.  It shares a long border with the North; it has hundreds of thousands of troops readily available, and it is the only country that possesses economic leverage over Pyongyang.  This country is the People’s Republic of China.

The evidence for this assertion speaks for itself:

• For several years, the PRC has had at least 130,000 soldiers on its 300-mile North Korean border. The stated purpose of these troops is to stem the flow of refugees, but their underlying purpose is undoubtedly to remind Kim that he rules only with the good graces of China’s leaders.    
• Beijing supplies Pyongyang with more than 90% of its oil – about 12,300 barrels a day.  Shipped alongside the fuel is a substantial quantity of food, necessary to help keep the North Korean starvation economy from imploding. Also, several news sources have recently noted that the PRC has purchased controlling stakes in much of the North’s mining industry, which is crucial to the North’s access to foreign exchange.    
• Chinese banks in Macau facilitate Kim’s illicit engagement in forging U.S. banknotes, which in turn affords the latter the income he needs to purchase both weapons technology and the luxury goods needed to placate restive officials.  

By these measures, Kim Jong-Il depends heavily upon China for his continuance as the North’s tyrant.   Put differently, the PRC has massive leverage on Kim and thus poses a grave threat to his rule, and possibly even his life.  His nuclear capabilities can thus be viewed mainly as an effort to ensure his sovereignty and to level the political playing field across the Yalu River, and only secondarily as an effort to intimidate the U.S.  For Kim, possession of such weapons diminishes the power Beijing has over his regime.  If for example, in a secret meeting between the two Communist governments, the Chinese threaten, as they reportedly have done, to withhold the vital aid as a form of punishment or compellance, the North can respond by menacing the PRC with the possibility of a nuclear attack upon China’s Manchurian industrial base, or even Beijing.   Such a threat, if believed, would work to bind China irrevocably to its North Korean brethren.

The supreme in Beijing, Hu Jintao, is aware of the danger Kim poses to China.  His continued support for the North then, is not a reflection of a close fraternal bond between Communists.  More likely is the fact that the PLA Political Department bears most of the responsibility for relations between Beijing and Pyongyang, and feels that the risks involved for themselves are outweighed the benefits they derive from Kim’s continued existence as a thorn in the side of the American adversary.  That, or they are arrogant enough to think that they have Kim under their thumb.

However, cognizant that this situation could become untenable, some leaders in Beijing have been doing worst-case-scenario planning on how best to deal with the North.   After Kim’s July 4th missile launch, Chinese leader Hu instructed his government’s leading foreign policy-making body, the Leading Group on Foreign Affairs, to begin formulating a strategy to minimize the deleterious effects that a North Korean collapse might have upon China.  Also, recent Sino-Russian military exercises have, in obvious reference to Kim, focused on the elimination of "extremism" and "common threats."  Indeed, several American analysts have commented that the exercises seemed to be a rehearsal for a possible joint incursion into the Korean peninsula.  

From this tenuous geostrategic position, China has played a subtle hand.  First, it has allowed the North’s propaganda to distract world attention from the realities detailed above, focusing it instead on Washington’s supposedly "hostile" behavior.  Second, while claiming that relations between the two countries are closer than "lips and teeth," China has simultaneously and mendaciously denied that it can do anything about Kim.  The PRC has thus been able to draw the U.S. into yet another round of fruitless six-way talks, which only serve to (a) increase Beijing’s diplomatic clout, (b) give the North more time for weapons development, and (c) cause Washington to expend time and energy on what, given China’ steadfast non-cooperation, is surely a worthless endeavor.

Navigating the geopolitical minefield in Northeast Asia is undoubtedly a tricky task. However, leaders in Washington can draw comfort in the fact that the two communist regimes are, despite pretenses, fully aware of the grave threat each poses to the other.  Our best policy option is to continue erecting the Theater Missile Defense system in the region, for it is only this capability that protects us and our allies for the two communist states.  We should also work to bat down the fusillades of lies that emerge daily in the form of Chinese and North Korean propaganda.  The Japanese, justifiably alarmed by recent events, would no doubt be of great service in a campaign of truth-telling.  By so doing, this country can work to shift the international debate on North Korea onto terms less favorable to China, and maybe, just maybe, force Beijing into a little bit of accountability.