China’s Shifting Views on Korean Unification Fei-Ling Wang
I. Diverging Reasons but Similar Views from Both Sides of the Pacific
Much of the future of Korean unification is shaped by two “external”
powers facing off across the Pacific: China on one side and the United States on the other. These two powers come from different directions, motivated by very divergent reasons, but they share a similar policy of favoring the status quo over Korean unification. Indeed, this overlapping of Sino-American interests on the Korean Peninsula has created a rare but concrete and precious common strategic interest for the two to base their relationship on. This is arguably the only geopolitical objective that Beijing and Washington clearly share today.
This cross-Pacific commonality has also helped to cement a status-quo preference in both countries to cautiously maintain their existing policies for the grander purpose of stabilizing the overall U.S.-China strategic game.
The United States has been a status quo power in Northeast Asia for decades and maintains a close military alliance with South Korea. For many reasons, the United States does not have much enthusiasm about any major reconfiguration of geopolitics in Northeast Asia which would necessarily result from a Korean unification. The security structure the U.S. set up at the end of World War II and maintained throughout the Cold War for the purpose of containing
the former Soviet Union and China (until the 1970s) has shown high degree of utility, resilience and longevity. While recognizing the new trend of reconfiguration and the emergence of a new order in East Asia,5Washington is in no hurry to alter this decades-old landscape.
Always watchful of China’s rising power, the United States appears to be still largely content with the status quo, despite the irritation and concern caused by defiant North Korea’s nuclear program. Washington still appears to be confident about maintaining peace and stability in the region with its existing capabilities and arrangements. Therefore, the U.S. understandably does not share much of the enthusiasm for the region’s rising aspirations of further integration, much less the Chinese vision of a political reconfiguration of the region that is poised to reduce, if not exclude, the U.S. presence. Korean unification may not necessarily enhance China’s hand in dealing with the United States, but it would nonetheless be a gate-opening event for altering the status quo, implying considerable uncertainties and risks for the reigning superpower.
To be fair, Washington has been generally supportive of regional integrations, supporting multilateral and even supranational regimes since World War II. The United States has been instrumental to the creation and growth of the Europeans Union and many other regional groups and blocs including its own NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) groupings. What makes the United States lukewarm at best and often downright suspicious about a political reconfiguration and integration
5G. John Ikenberry and Chung-In Moon eds., The United States and Northeast Asia:
Debates, Issues, and New Order, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
in Northeast Asia is that it does not want to see uncontrolled and uncompensated changes in the region’s status quo. More importantly, Washington sees the PRC as an ideological, political, and geostrategic competitor and perhaps even a destined foe, and thus it greatly distrusts Beijing’s intentions behind its push for a possible East Asian reconfiguration. In fact, this American view is shared by many local leaders and elites in East Asia.6Therefore, the American alternative idea of constructing a “Pacific Community” based largely on an unchanged political map that would insert the Unites States legitimately in the middle of the integrated region as a “Pacific nation” has a fairly receptive audience in the region as well.7
Both parallel and in reaction to the U.S. policy towards Korean unification, China has exhibited a similar status quo attitude, albeit with a more accommodating and sympathetic tone toward Korean desires for national reunification. From quite divergent standpoints and for quite different reasons, the two major external powers have similar attitudes towards Korean unification, pro tempera.
In recent times, at first practically and then conceptually, Chinese attitudes and perspectives have changed regarding the political reconfiguration in East Asia in general and the Korean Peninsula in particular. Beijing started to positively echo then-Japanese Prime
6Author’s interviews in East Asia, 2008-2011.
7Michael J. Green & Bates Gill eds., Asia’s New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Mark Borthwick & Tadashi Yamamoto eds., A Pacific Nation: Perspectives on the U.S. Role in an East Asia Community, Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2011.
Minister Hatoyama’s new proposal for an EAC (East Asian Community).
Vice President of the PRC Xi Jinping openly stated in 2009 that construction of an EAC is “a common objective for China and Japan”
and worthy of joint efforts.8China has in fact participated in many activities related to the promotion and development of an EAC, including the annual East Asia Summit meetings since their inception in 2005. The new momentum for an EAC has chiefly, if not exclusively, come from the epic rise of China. Indeed, China has now become a real center of gravity and a new leader offering competing ideas, new resources and energy, and alternative leadership. China is rightfully becoming a decisive player in the political future of East Asia and beyond. Interestingly, a stronger and more confident China and a subdued Japan make for a more realistic chance of achieving an EAC.
Yet China still officially exhibits its traditional ambivalence and reluctance towards the EAC idea. President For example, Hu Jintao repeatedly mentioned common (gongtong) development, spirit, and interests for a “harmonious Asia” in his speech at the Boao Forum for Asia in 2011, but did not once mention the word community (gongtongti) or the EAC.9
Regarding the Korean Peninsula, China continues its careful balance- of-power policy, making noises supportive of Korean unification but acting to maintain the status quo. However, hesitance and reluctance aside, observers generally agree that Chinese grand strategy and
8Xi Jinping huijian riben hanguo xinwen jizhe(Xi Jinping’s interviews with Japanese and Korean reporters), Beijing: Xinhua, December 13, 2009.
9Hu Jintao, Tuidong gongtong fazhan, gongjian hexie yazhou (Push for common development, construct a harmonious Asia), speech to the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2011, Boao, Hainan: Xinhua, April 15, 2011.
foreign policy are poised to evolve further as China inevitably grows into a true superpower. How that will play out in China’s new policy towards Korean unification remains to be seen. For now, early signs of new thinking have started to emerge and deeper currents are shifting in Beijing, which is likely to lead to a reassessment and profound reformulation of Chinese policy towards Korean unification in the not-too-distant future. Furthermore, if the United States (with and through its allies), holding clear swaying power over prospects for Korean unification, is chiefly influenced by its apprehension about Chinese intentions and actions, then what China believes and how it behaves may in some ways mitigate American concerns. Will China take more assertive involvement in the Korean Peninsula and play a more active role in facilitating Korean unification? What are the costs for such Chinese facilitation, and would South Korea and the United States accept them? The prospects for Korean unification seem heavily dependent on the answers to those questions.