Of all the outside countries, China most deeply fears the collapse of North Korea's regime. Chaos in North Korea could precipitate massive and destabilizing refugee flows to China's northeast provinces, where many ethnic Koreans now live. Most significantly, from Beijing's standpoint, collapse could lead to the loss of North Korea as a buffer that provides China with "strategic depth."
China's nightmare scenario is the presence of South Korean troops operating with strong American military support on the country's current border with North Korea. With their awareness of this acute Chinese sensitivity, Pentagon planners have long considered it likely that Beijing would send its troops at least 40 kilometers into North Korea, along the full length of the border, in the event of serious instability - before South Korean or American forces could reach the region.
China's fear of American and South Korean intervention has undoubtedly been heightened by the series of aggressive military measures the Obama administration initiated at the time of the president's trip to Asia in early November.
Among these measures were the deployment of 2,500 marines to northern Australia, strengthening the U.S.-Philippine military alliance to resist China's territorial claims in the South China sea, endorsement of the Pentagon's "Air Sea Battle" concept that foresees joint Navy and Air Force long-range strikes inside China and likely deployment of the Navy's ultra-modern Littoral Combat Ships to Singapore. Taken together, Chinese commentators have viewed the Obama administration initiatives as evidence of America's intention to encircle and contain China.
Now is the time to prove wrong the skeptics and pessimists in Beijing who argue that the U.S has recently adopted a "Cold War posture" to counter China. Washington and Seoul should seek new and in-depth diplomatic discussions with Beijing on preventing instability in North Korea - discussions which China has avoided in the past for fear of offending Kim Jong-il when he was alive.
Close cooperation by Seoul and Washington with Beijing to prevent instability in North Korea is the best means of realizing three critical policy goals - bringing about a more benign regime in Pyongyang; preventing proliferation of North Korea's nuclear weapons, materiel and technologies; and laying the long-term basis for eventual Korean reunification. As importantly, this cooperation will eliminate the possibility that the U.S., South Korea and China could be drawn into a new military conflict on the Korean peninsula, which would prove disastrous for all the countries concerned.
