Still, Liu is wary of what the unpredictable country might do and wants China to maintain a balanced policy of avoiding steps that could lead to conflict. "This is a very poor country, maybe they are not afraid to lose something, but for China we have to be afraid of our border security, prosperity of people, our lives." He says, "we should punish them in some ways but leave some room" and adds that China, while making common cause with South Korea, the US and others, "should maintain some contacts, some channels [of communication] with North Korea."
China is often asked by foreign countries, and now some Chinese commentators, to stop supplying North Korea rice and oil that keep the regime alive. But that, Liu says, would make them take more desperate steps. Besides, North Korea can still carry on for some time with selling arms and smuggling operations. With the military totally controlling news from the outside and closely monitoring citizens, toppling the regime is not easy, he says.
China's Global Times has published a series of provocative articles analyzing the North Korean situation. Ren Weidong, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, raised the possibility that North Korea was cultivating the US in order to join an anti-China alliance as a nuclear power. "The most important US strategy in the Asia-Pacific region," he wrote, "is to establish a most extensive international united front against China, of which North Korea is a component." His analysis was pooh-poohed by Cao Shigong, a researcher at the Korean Peninsula Research Society, Chinese Association of Asia-Pacific Studies, who characterized writing like Ren's as that of "agitators." He wrote: "This kind of argument, defaming North Korea as an ungrateful scoundrel, intends to do nothing but alienate the relationship between China and North Korea."
Shanghai-based Liu calls for a moderate approach in recognition of North Korea's complicated situation. He suggests that Kim's effort to reform the economy has run into opposition from the military and officials. He noted that such opposition has stalled an attempt by Kim last summer to abolish the public distribution system. Perhaps perceiving Kim's weak position, China is being extra cautious about pushing North Korea. After the Security Council vote, Li Baodong, Chinese ambassador to the United Nations who voted for the sanction, sought to dispel fears that China would slow-roll implementation. "Passing the resolution, by itself, is not enough," he said. "We want to see the resolution completely enforced." But that stern message was diluted by Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who said at a press conference that sanctions are not "the fundamental way to resolve the relevant issues," adding that "the only right way to resolve the issue is to take a holistic approach and resolve the concerns of all parties involved in a comprehensive and balanced manner through dialogue and consultations."
John Delury, a Seoul-based East Asian expert, acknowledges that discordant voices may be aired in publications like Global Times, but reports seeing no shift in Chinese policy. Beijing clearly is unhappy about North Korea making headway in its nuclear program. In an email, he said China is annoyed on a variety of issues with North Korea, "but it is also committed to the alliance (its only one!), sympathetic with North Korea's threat perception of the US, ROK and Japan, opposed in principle and practice to sanctions, and happy to have a buffer state keeping at least some distance from a major US military garrison."
While Beijing continues to hew to its established policy line, open debate in the Chinese press points to deepening distrust and worry - quite a change in tone about a neighbor with whom relations used to be compared to that between lips and teeth.
