Stardate 20030829.1842

(On Screen): The six-way talks in Beijing are wrapping up, and while it may not have accomplished anything in gross, it seems to have been another milestone in convincing the Chinese that North Korea is the problem, and that maintenance of the status quo isn't the solution.

I see two successive news releases. First, from Reuters:

China Says N.Korea Wants Nuclear-Free Peninsula

China said on Thursday all six countries meeting in Beijing to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis had agreed on a mutual goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula as they prepared to announce another round of talks.

Such an agreement after the second day of negotiations in Beijing to end a 10-month stand-off would amount to a major concession by North Korea, which has said it has the right to a nuclear deterrent to fend off what it regards as U.S. hostility.

A few hours later, there was this one, from the AP:

N. Korea to Declare It Has Nuclear Arms

North Korea startled a six-nation conference in China on East Asian security by announcing its intentions to formally declare its possession of nuclear weapons and to carry out a nuclear test, an administration official said Thursday.

North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il also told the gathering that his country has the means to deliver nuclear weapons, an apparent reference to the North's highly developed missile program.

The comments cast a pall over Thursday's plenary session, which included representatives of the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, in addition to North Korea.

James Kelly, the chief U.S. delegate, demanded that North Korea engage in the verifiable and permanent dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs, in return for which the United States would provide security guarantees and economic benefits.

The administration official, asking not to be identified, said that when Russia and Japan attempted to point out some positive elements of the U.S. presentation, the North Korean delegate attacked them by name and said they were lying at the instruction of the United States.

According to the administration official, China's delegate appeared visibly angry over Kim's statement but responded in a moderate tone.

Kim said his country was maintaining this position because the United States clearly had no intention of abandoning its hostile policy toward North Korea, the U.S. official said.

(The Reuters coverage of the same thing played it quite a bit differently.)

Of course, in overt terms this is not a good thing. But there was never any chance of a real solution in this situation unless China was willing to apply serious pressure, mostly because China is the only nation remaining that has the ability to do so.

The Chinese have already been using pressure on North Korea. There was this CNN report, and this Newsweek report:

China’s patience with North Korea is wearing thin. The trouble isn’t only Pyongyang’s crash program to create a nuclear arsenal—although that’s caused plenty of sleepless nights in Beijing.

Thanks largely to heavy diplomatic pressure from China’s president, Hu Jintao, negotiators from Pyongyang are scheduled to begin talks in Beijing this week with representatives from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. But the Chinese have a more urgent reason than anyone else at the table to want major reforms in Kim Jong Il’s regime without delay. Hunger and oppression inside North Korea have spawned an epidemic of violent crime on the Chinese side of the border. “The North Koreans aren’t afraid of anything,” says one area resident. “Now we’re the ones living in fear.”

Although Beijing has mostly kept the crime wave out of the papers, it’s no secret to anyone who lives in the area. More than 100,000 illegal North Korean refugees live in China in hiding, under constant threat of being sent home to face starvation, imprisonment and possible execution if they are caught. Robbing or stealing is sometimes the only way to survive. North Korean soldiers have added to the chaos, in-filtrating across the line and attempting armed robberies—even, NEWSWEEK has learned, a bank holdup in the border town of Tumen.

The Korea Times described some of that "heavy diplomatic pressure":

Shen Dingli, professor at Hudan University in Shanghai and who was visiting Korea for an international seminar, was quoted by sources as saying that Hu’s message was very clear about the possibility of U.S. military action against the communist country that is defying international calls to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Attending a workshop held on the sideline of the 12th Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations last week, the Chinese expert on international relations said, ``Hu told Kim, `If you make a problem, the U.S. will attack you. Don’t expect any help from us.’’’

China has always been the key here. There cannot be any resolution unless the Chinese leadership wants there to be one and is willing to commit to making it happen. But they've had conflicted motives:

Despite lingering loyalty to North Korea, China has powerful reasons to dissuade it from pursuing nuclear status. China wants to be sure that World War II enemy Japan does not have North Korea as an excuse to rebuild an aggressive military. It wants to be sure that the United States does not have cause to attack North Korea, which could potentially create an American beachhead on its border. And Beijing wants to discourage any plans that could cause a collapse in North Korea, potentially sending a flood of refugees across its border.

If talks fail to move toward a resolution of the U.S.-North Korea standoff, all players will be looking to China to play an even greater role — using its oil and food aid for leverage. So far, Beijing has resisted this approach, but that could change.

“If their backs are up against the wall and it looks like North Korea is going nuclear, I could imagine China pulling out all the stops to get them to back down,” says Eric Heginbotham, a senior research fellow and Korea specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The consensus in Washington is that they may do something, and it may be decisive, but not until the last minute.”

North Korea has been a growing tumor for a long time now, and it's reached the point where it can't be ignored any longer. Chinese policy was to try to con the US into accepting bilateral talks with North Korea in hopes that the US would make major concessions to put the lid back on. As the Bush administration stood firm, with a policy I characterized as "engaged apathy", the Chinese have more and more switched to the idea that it was North Korea which would have to be forced to change.

China has better ability to bring about that kind of thing in North Korea than any other outsider, since at this point China is the only remaining significant supplier of food and petroleum. If that's cut off, NK collapses in very short order.

And that's yet another Chinese fear (and fear of everyone else, too): what would happen in a North Korean implosion?

On the other hand, if NK actually performs a nuclear test in some sort of spectacular fashion, such as firing a nuclear-armed missile over Japan to detonate in the North Pacific, then for the Chinese (and everyone else) that's even worse.

This most recent move by the Kim government may be the one which finally convinces the leadership in Beijing that Kim is a luxury they can no longer afford. If so, then that will have been progress indeed.