BEIJING: When Beijing and Pyongyang eventually break their silence on the stealthy visit to China this week of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il, state media will no doubt trumpet the unshakeability of their comradely ties.
No country has closer relations with staunchly communist North Korea than China. That much is true. But these days it's not saying much. In reality, North Korea and China are Communist brothers in little more than name and analysts say relations have been shaken by the international crisis surrounding Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programmes.
"Each harbours contempt for the other," said Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at Tuft's University in the United States. "The North Korean nuclear threat is a major headache for the Chinese."
China worries that a nuclear North could set off a regional arms race and has become increasingly impatient as the crisis has dragged on, with no end in sight despite Beijing's unusually active efforts to find a diplomatic resolution.
The standoff is just the latest in a string of bumps that have strained the relationship that appeared ironclad when China came to North Korea's rescue in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Indeed, ideological differences have dogged ties between the Communist parties since the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in 1948. Just after that, Kim's father, Kim Il-sung, purged many of his pro-China rivals.
During China's destructive Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, North Korea kept its distance and looked on with superiority. And Pyongyang blasted Beijing as revisionist after China embarked on economic reforms from the late 1970s. "Relations are certainly at a low ebb," said Marc Lanteigne, professor of political science at Canada's Dalhousie University.
STILL A BUFFER: As sour as ties may have turned, when Beijing strategists crunch the data they conclude that North Korea's existence, and close China relations with Pyongyang, are essential at least for now, analysts say.
A "buffer" school of thought, which sees the North as a cushion between China and US troops in South Korea, remains dominant in Chinese policy-making circles, You Ji, a scholar at the University of New South Wales, said in a recent paper.
"Pyongyang's ill intentions and unpredictable adventurism notwithstanding, North Korea's very existence remains of great strategic value to a China whose worst security nightmare is that of another Korean war," he said.
Although the gulf between their strategic interests is widening as China's fate becomes increasingly linked to the economic and political stability of Asia and the world, an abrupt collapse of impoverished North Korea is not in China's interests.
"The Chinese are in some ways the greatest hostage to North Korea, for in spite of the enormous leverage they have over the needy North Koreans, they cannot exercise it," Lee said. China is the North's biggest supplier of food and energy aid, but only out of necessity, he said.
"China would rather expend its energies developing its economy and thwarting an imminent collapse of North Korea, which would lead to millions of poor North Korean refugees flooding its border," Lee said.
ANOTHER SCHOOL: Nevertheless, the nuclear crisis has emboldened an opposing school of thought in China that sees North Korea as a threat to stability and, in particular, to the task of reclaiming Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a wayward province.
"China's position on North Korea should not be looked at separately from China's position on Taiwan," said Shin Sang-jin, an expert on North Korea-China relations at Kwangwoon University in Seoul. A Western military analyst in Beijing said China's military has been undergoing a strategic shift in recent years to focus more resources on Taiwan.
The Korean nuclear crisis has been a major distraction from that task since it flared in late 2002, he said. Pyongyang's missile tests in recent years have sent chills through Japan and South Korea, both lying within range, and have caught the eye of Chinese strategists who have noted that the range encompasses Beijing and probably Shanghai.
In the event of war on the Korean peninsula that would be anathema to China, it may have to take sides once again. Pyongyang may be forced to ask: "Are you with us or against us?" the military analyst said. -Reuters
