China 'shifts position' on North Korea
There are clear signs that China is losing patience with North Korea, America's former top diplomat in Asia has said.
9:54AM BST 05 Apr 2013
For several decades, China has been North Korea's closest ally, largest trade partner and primary source of aid.
However, 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.
"You have seen it at the United Nations (Security Council). We have seen it in our private discussions and you see it in statements in Beijing," he added.
Mr Campbell, who left the State department in February to found his own consultancy firm, was one of the architects of the US diplomatic and military "pivot" towards Asia.
He added that North Korean officials have noticed the change of mood in Beijing.
"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."
Earlier, Mr Campbell told the Wall Street Journal that China "cannot be happy" and that he expected a tougher line to emerge from Beijing.
Nevertheless, he acknowledged that Beijing has never been willing to debate North Korea's future with the United States and South Korea, both of whom it holds in some suspicion.
Currently, Beijing appears to prefer the devil it knows, in the shape of the unpredictable Kim family regime, to the uncertainties, and perhaps American influence, that a reunification on the Korean peninsula could bring.
However, Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group, said Beijing was "fed up" at the distractions being created by Pyongyang while it tries to focus its energies on other problems. "They need to address issues in the South China Sea, they have a corruption campaign going on at home, North Korea is giving them a headache," said Mr Pinkston.
Certainly North Korea no longer merits much respect among ordinary Chinese, who have taken to insulting Kim Jong-un as "Fatty Kim" or "Fatty the Third", in reference to his father and grandfather, on the Chinese internet.
But more reasoned debate over North Korea has been reined in by the Chinese authorities. Deng Yuwen, the deputy editor of the Central Party School's Study Times journal was suspended last week from his position after penning an anti-North Korea editorial for the Financial Times.
Mr Deng argued that China's relationship with North Korea had become a liability. "Why should China maintain relations with a regime and a country that will face failure sooner or later?" he asked. "Once North Korea has nuclear weapons, it cannot be ruled out that the capricious Kim regime will engage in nuclear blackmail against China," he added.
Meanwhile, the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a key bellwether of relations between the North and the South, was closed on Friday for a national holiday.
The North has blocked South Korean workers from entering the site, which lies six miles inside its border, for two days, although staff are permitted to leave the site.
The South Korean Unification minister, Ryoo Kihl-jae, said the South was willing to evacuate the Kaesong if it was felt that its citizens were in danger. At present, however, he said the situation at Kaesong "is not very dangerous" and the government was "not considering" a shutdown.
South Korea has also dispatched warships, in addition to the two US destroyers in the area, to monitor the North for a missile launch. Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reported that two more missiles had been transported by North Korea to its east coast using its network of underground tunnels.
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