Seven years later, despite the administration’s having advanced other goals in non-proliferation policy, the larger vision of a nuclear-free world remains very much unfulfilled. But President Obama apparently hasn’t given up. In late May, he became the first American president to visit Hiroshima, where the United States first employed a nuclear weapon in warfare. In his speech, the president declared that “nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles…must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.” Moreover, as President Obama approaches his final six months in office, senior officials are purportedly deliberating additional policy changes that they believe could be undertaken without congressional approval. As Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said in a June 6 speech at the Arms Control Association, the president remains intent on advancing his “Prague agenda” before leaving office.

According to recent press reports, the policy options under consideration include U.S. enunciation of a nuclear “no first use” doctrine. Such a step would represent a profound shift in U.S. policy. Non-nuclear states living in the shadow of nuclear-armed adversaries have long relied on U.S. security guarantees, specifically the declared commitment to employ nuclear weapons should our allies be subject to aggression with conventional forces. They have based their own national security strategies on that pledge, including their willingness to forego indigenous development of nuclear weapons.

Northeast Asia presents a clear contradiction between President Obama’s non-nuclear aspirations and existing circumstances.

These issues bear directly on the credibility of U.S. guarantees to allies in Europe and Asia, with particular relevance in Northeast Asia. Since the end of the Cold War, the content of the U.S. extended nuclear deterrence pledge has already narrowed. Washington has long deemed any use of nuclear weapons a matter of absolute last resort. Since the early 1990s, Washington has also enunciated an unambiguous distinction between employment of conventional and nuclear weapons, including the unilateral withdrawal of all tactical nuclear weapons deployed on the Korean peninsula. 

The Obama administration itself has also moved closer to limiting nuclear weapons use exclusively to deter another state’s first use of such a weapon against the United States, its allies, and partners—in fact, the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review declared that this was a “fundamental role” of the American nuclear arsenal. At that time, it also pledged to “work to establish conditions” under which it was safe to adopt universally a policy where the “sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons was to deter a nuclear attack by an adversary. The implication of such a “sole purpose” policy would be that North Korea need not fear American nuclear retaliation if it mounted only a conventional attack against South Korea. 

Whether it is “no first use” or “sole purpose use,” Northeast Asia presents a clear contradiction between President Obama’s non-nuclear aspirations and existing circumstances. The Republic of Korea and Japan (the only state ever subject to nuclear attack) confront the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea. Pyongyang continues to enhance its weapons inventory and the means to deliver them. It also regularly threatens Seoul and Tokyo with missile attack, potentially armed with nuclear weapons. 

[A]ny indications that the United States might be wavering from its nuclear guarantees would trigger worst-case fears that the United States, above all, would not want to stimulate.

Both U.S. allies are therefore strongly opposed to a U.S. “no first use” pledge, and would likely have deep concerns about a sole purpose commitment. Though the United States possesses a wide array of non-nuclear strike options in the event of a North Korean attack directed against South Korea or Japan, any indications that the United States might be wavering from its nuclear guarantees would trigger worst-case fears that the United States, above all, would not want to stimulate. At the same time, choosing not to issue a “no first use” pledge should not in any way suggest that the United States favors nuclear use, which would play directly into North Korean propaganda strategy. Rather, the United States should not preemptively remove the nuclear option, especially when North Korea is in overt defiance of its non-proliferation obligations and is single-mindedly intent on a building a nuclear weapons capability.

The Obama administration must therefore balance its clear desire to advance a non-nuclear legacy with Northeast Asia’s inescapable realities. Enunciating a “no first use” doctrine or a sole purpose commitment in the administration’s waning months in office is a bridge too far. Though the United States can and should engage South Korea and Japan in much deeper consultations about extended deterrence, it cannot put at risk the security of allies directly threatened by attack from a nuclear-armed adversary. 

The next U.S. president will have to square this circle. In the meantime, the Obama administration should do all that it can to plan for the road ahead, even if it means policy pledges that might not be as visionary as it would prefer. 

       

 

 

From the outset of Manila’s initiation of the arbitration process, Beijing has refused to participate. However, it did issue a position statement of its own in late 2014, claiming that the arbitration panel violated various UNCLOS provisions and additional agreements signed by the two governments. As the arbitration neared its conclusion, China released a steady stream of editorials and commentaries, claiming that the ruling sought “to deny China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea.” 

Beijing has repeatedly stated that “it does not accept any means of third party dispute settlement or any solution imposed on China.” At the same time, UNCLOS has no enforcement mechanism for carrying out the panel’s judgments. But Beijing’s repeated efforts at shaming and stonewalling have imposed an undoubted cost on its political standing in the region. Moreover, China’s signing of UNCLOS obligated Beijing to compulsory third party determination, though it is not the only power contesting this commitment. 

Beijing’s repeated efforts at shaming and stonewalling have imposed an undoubted cost on its political standing in the region.

The fundamental weakness of China’s policy defense was its reliance on various “historic claims” to most of the maritime expanses of the South China Sea, including areas that directly encroached on the sovereign territory of various neighboring states. Its claims have frequently been encapsulated in the nine-dash line, an ill-defined geographic demarcation initially appearing in a map prepared by cartographers in the Republic of China in 1947 (i.e., prior to the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949). But China’s sweeping claims to “unequivocal sovereignty” failed to address the multiple layers of ambiguity and conflicting judgments found in various policy documents released by Beijing.

Moreover, the arbitration panel emphasized from the outset that its authority did not extend to determinations over sovereignty. Rather, its mandate (distilled from a list of 15 claims in Manila’s original brief) focused on Chinese claims to the continental shelf and to exclusive economic zones extending from land features, reefs, and rocks over which China claimed indisputable sovereignty. The Philippines also contested Chinese activities that infringed on the rights of Filipino fishermen, Beijing’s construction of artificial islands, and the operation of Chinese law enforcement vessels in various shoals. 

Even if Beijing persists in its angry defiance of the arbitration panel’s findings and continues to contest their legitimacy, the sweeping character of the rulings (in a document exceeding 500 pages in length) is impossible to deny. UNCLOS specifically states that land features not deemed an island are entitled only to a 12-mile territorial sea, not to an exclusive economic zone or to a continental shelf. In an especially controversial finding, the panel concluded that Itu Aba (known in Chinese as Taiping Island and the largest land feature in the Spratly Island group and controlled by Taiwan) was not an island; this has been strongly contested by Taipei as well as by Beijing.

The biggest looming issues will focus on how China opts to respond.

The biggest looming issues will focus on how China opts to respond in words and deeds. The arbitration proceeding has triggered strongly nationalistic responses from leaders and experts in China, with many alleging a hidden U.S. hand in the arbitration. American political and military support for the Philippines and other claimants and heightened U.S. air and maritime activities in the South China Sea—all justified as ensuring freedom of navigation in the vital waterways of the region—engenders additional angry responses from the Chinese leadership. 

Beijing continues to insist that it is prepared to enter into bilateral negotiations with Manila over various disputed claims. But with China claiming indisputable sovereignty over various contested features and possessing maritime capabilities that vastly exceed those of any other claimants, will it be prepared to demonstrate flexibility, restrain its responses, and give any credence to the diligent labors of the arbitration panel? Can Beijing envision quiet diplomacy, either with the United States or with regional claimants, as opposed to seeing itself as the endlessly aggrieved party? If Beijing doesn’t exercise restraint and instead takes steps that heighten the risks, these could readily pose new threats to the regional maritime order that cannot possibly be in anyone’s interest. 

       

 

 

As elaborated in the official announcement, the THAAD deployments are intended to defend the infrastructure and citizens of South Korea, and to protect core military capabilities underpinning the U.S.-Korea alliance. It is not a panacea for South Korea’s potential vulnerabilities to North Korean missile attack, but it will appreciably buttress Seoul’s still-limited air and missile defense capabilities, and explicitly link them to the far greater assets of the United States. 

Seoul did not undertake this commitment lightly. In recent years, South Korean strategic analysts have hotly debated the missile defense issue, but the political-military leadership has proceeded very deliberately. It was only in the aftermath of North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in early January and a long-range rocket test that soon followed that President Park Geun-hye’s administration agreed to initiate consultations on the “earliest possible” deployment of a THAAD missile battery. The North’s accelerated missile testing program, evident since April, reinforced the need for a meaningful response to Pyongyang’s actions.

Neither China nor Russia seems mollified by today’s announcement. Beijing and Moscow both perceive a malign U.S. strategic design, purportedly intended to detect and intercept Chinese and Russian strategic missiles, thereby invalidating their respective deterrence capabilities. But these worst-case estimates attribute technical reach and refinement to the Raytheon radar system likely to accompany the THAAD deployment that substantially exceeds even the manufacturer’s claims. 

China and Russia also contend that the THAAD deployment will further complicate the larger goal of denuclearization and threat reduction on the Korean Peninsula. But this places the cart before the horse. Pyongyang’s determination to expand and diversify its nuclear and missile programs has triggered the THAAD decision. Without the North’s accelerated military efforts, it is very doubtful that sentiment in Seoul would favor deployment of THAAD. Beijing and Moscow assuredly know how to connect the dots, but they seem unwilling to do so. 

At a time of increased Chinese wariness about U.S. military strategy along China’s periphery, it is not a surprise that Beijing has paid little heed to American and South Korean assurances.

Beijing also calculates that warning South Korea of unspecified consequences will convince Seoul to forego the THAAD decision. But this underestimates the South’s determination to proceed with missile defense, which will tie Seoul even more integrally to longer-term cooperation with the United States. This decision is unwelcome in China, but it is wholly within Seoul’s sovereign right to defend its vital interests by all appropriate means; China routinely does the same.

In meetings with Chinese counterparts, senior Korean officials have repeatedly stated that the THAAD deployment serves one irreducible purpose: the protection of South Korean vital national security interests. Seoul is keenly aware of Chinese strategic equities, and will remain very mindful of Beijing’s concerns as it moves ahead with this program. 

At the same time, Seoul and Washington have repeatedly conveyed their willingness to impart to officials in Beijing the limited purpose of the THAAD deployment. It will be directed entirely towards the North’s threats against the South; it will be exclusively bilateral in design; and it will not be targeted against the capabilities of any other party. 

At a time of increased Chinese wariness about U.S. military strategy along China’s periphery, it is not a surprise that Beijing has paid little heed to American and South Korean assurances, at least publicly. But officials and analysts in China must quietly grasp the reasons for the THAAD decision. The North’s nuclear and missile programs worry China deeply, as well. 

The need for a quiet, private conversation about the risks to stability on the peninsula has never been greater. The United States and South Korea are surely ready for this conversation. Whether China is ready remains to be seen.

       

 

 

Kim is the third member of the Kim family to wield absolute power over the northern half of the Korean peninsula since the regime’s establishment in 1948. In no small part, he must try to convince the elites and citizens of North Korea that he will not be the last.

The North’s survival over nearly 70 years in power is difficult for the outside world to grasp. The Kim family has relied on guile, manipulation, historical mythology, surveillance, and unimaginable repression to sustain a uniquely adversarial system that is both dynastic and totalitarian. 

The price paid by the people of the North has been horrific. The citizenry has endured international isolation, economic privation, and unconditional subordination to the leadership’s grandiose, warped visions, including a level of militarization without parallel anywhere in the world.

Nuclear weapons, the elephant in the room

Even worse, North Korea is now a nuclear-armed state. It is the only country to ever withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and has tested nuclear weapons on four occasions, the only state in the world to undertake nuclear tests in the 21st century. In mid-March, Kim Jong Un pledged that North Korea would conduct a fifth test in the near future, which many expect will be in conjunction with the Party Congress this week. 

Pyongyang also continues to pursue development of a wide variety of ballistic missiles and has engaged in a flurry of recent tests, most of which have been spectacular failures. It says otherwise to its own citizens, urging them to celebrate North Korea’s supposed achievements. 

North Korea also insists that it is now a full-fledged nuclear weapons state with capabilities equivalent to the established nuclear powers. These claims remain aspirational and without a basis in fact. Pyongyang claims that its most recent nuclear test (conducted in very early January) was a fully successful test of a thermonuclear weapon, and that it possesses a miniaturized warhead that it can deliver on both land-based and sea-launched missiles. 

North Korea continues to make halting, incremental improvement in its programs, but few experts give credence to these claims. None, however, doubt the regime’s determination to persist with these programs, regardless of the economic and systemic consequences.

The cumulative results of North Korean militarization are extraordinary.

The citizens of North Korea have been told for decades that survival in a hostile world necessitates pursuit of advanced weapons to deter nuclear attack by the United States. It also claims that its economic backwardness is explained by the predatory designs of the United States and its “follower forces,” which leave North Korea no alternative other than undertaking its own weapons programs.

The cumulative results of North Korean militarization are extraordinary. Until the early 1970s, the per capita GDP of the North exceeded that of the Republic of Korea, then in the early stages of its economic development. South Korea is now the 12th or 13th biggest economy in the world (depending on how it’s measured), and its GDP is approximately 35 times the size of its impoverished northern neighbor. 

Kim at the wheel

Kim Jong Un assumed power following the death of his father in December 2011. In 2013, he put forward his byung-jin policy, premised on the claim that North Korea could achieve simultaneous success in nuclear weapons and in economic advancement. 

Few outside North Korea believe this is possible. Moreover, the increasingly stringent sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council on North Korea seek to convey to Pyongyang that it cannot expect to achieve economic modernization and nuclear weapons development at the same time—nor that the outside world will accept North Korea’s claims to legitimacy as a nuclear armed state.

[T]he spread of information technology and internationalization would very likely prove a bigger threat to the survival of the Kim regime than the military threats and malign designs it sees as directed against it.

Though educated for several years at a private boarding school in Switzerland as a teenager, there is nothing worldly about Kim Jong Un. He has not traveled abroad since his elevation to top leadership, and he is not known to have met any foreign heads of state. It’s not clear that he even seeks such opportunities, except on terms that others deem unacceptable. If anything, the spread of information technology and internationalization would very likely prove a bigger threat to the survival of the Kim regime than the military threats and malign designs it sees as directed against it. 

Kim’s more immediate and pressing agenda is to install in power a younger generation of leaders who are loyal to him and have the requisite skills to somehow advance North Korea’s parlous economic circumstances. But Kim (as with his father and grandfather before him) continues to insist that North Korea will follow no one’s script except its own.

Is this credible, even to the North’s own citizens, growing numbers of whom now possess at least rudimentary knowledge of the outside world and grasp their acute backwardness? Kim Jong Un, who most often seems impatient and impetuous, must somehow convince others that there is a way out. 

But what if neither Kim nor his subordinates sees an exit from their prevailing circumstances? Does he even understand the agonizing choices that North Korea confronts? Are there others in the leadership prepared to convey these realities to him, at risk to their own well-being and perhaps even their own lives? It seems very unlikely that any such doubts will be conveyed at the Party Congress, but it seems equally unlikely that some of those in attendance have not contemplated these possibilities.

      

 

 

Though there are ambiguities and loopholes in the criteria and enforcement provisions governing the resolution (UNSCR 2270), the new sanctions have much sharper teeth than previous resolutions—and China has unequivocally pledged to uphold the letter and spirit of the council’s decision. Even before the resolution passed, South Korean and Chinese media reported that financial transactions in the city of Dandong (where most border trade takes place between China and North Korea) had been sharply curtailed. 

By mid-March, Beijing was notifying local authorities on the procedures for implementing the sanctions, which will inhibit North Korean exports of coal, iron, and other minerals—the largest source of Pyongyang’s foreign exchange earnings with the outside world. At the same time, Chinese authorities were sharply limiting access of North Korean ships to ports across northeastern China, and according to some reports have barred the entry of North Korean freighters into specific ports.

Turning up the dial

So, after China’s radio silence following the fourth nuclear test, Beijing has now decided to make Pyongyang feel the pain. The Chinese also plan to consult more closely with the United States and South Korea, with President Xi Jinping planning to meet President Obama on the sidelines of this week’s Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. President Xi will likely meet separately with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, as well.

For the first time, China has begun to fully acknowledge that North Korean actions pose a direct threat to vital Chinese security interests.

For the first time, China has begun to fully acknowledge that North Korean actions pose a direct threat to vital Chinese security interests, and that Beijing is no longer prepared to rationalize or ignore the threat. Beijing has also concluded that its inaction was damaging personal and political relations between President Xi and President Park. But the driving factor is that China is no longer prepared to tolerate the cavalier, near-contemptuous attitude of Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s impetuous young leader, toward his principal source of economic support.

China insists that it desires normal, nominally co-equal relations with both Koreas. But Beijing’s ties with Seoul and Pyongyang are already highly imbalanced. China and South Korea have extensive economic and political relations; China and North Korea, in contrast, are increasingly alienated—which (despite shared revolutionary origins and China’s major sacrifices in the Korean War) represents an increasing liability to Chinese interests.

China is thus at long last prepared to connect the dots in its relations with North Korea. It also objects strenuously to discussions between the United States and South Korea on the prospective deployment of terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) missiles and advanced radars on the peninsula, claiming that they undermine the credibility of China’s strategic nuclear forces. But Washington and Seoul speak with one voice: If THAAD and its associated radars are deployed, they will focus exclusively on current and projected North Korean missile threats, and are not designed to weaken China’s nuclear deterrent.

[T]he driving factor is that China is no longer prepared to tolerate the cavalier, near-contemptuous attitude of Kim Jong-un.

Patience wearing thin

China voices understandable worries about the prospect of an acute crisis on the Korean peninsula, but it increasingly places the blame on its isolated, nuclear-armed neighbor. As observed in an editorial in the popular Chinese paper Global Times: 

“North Korea must not overestimate its ability to control danger…The United States has the strength to drastically change the rules of the game…Pyongyang should not expect China to be able to protect its security through UNSC channels when it engages in reckless risk taking…what it creates will be a situation that China simply cannot control. Nuclear weapons and missiles are indeed powerful strategic tools, but in North Korea they have brought real and imminent national strategic risks.”

Such sentiments have never before been voiced openly at such authoritative levels in Beijing, but they have now entered mainstream Chinese strategic debates. In an extraordinarily frank interview during a recent visit to South Korea, Ambassador Wu Dawei, China’s long-time lead negotiator on the Korean nuclear issue, expressed mounting frustration that North Korea lets China’s advice “go through one ear and out the other ear.” Ambassador Wu ominously asserted that by refusing to forego its nuclear and missile capabilities, North Korea had “signed its own death warrant.”

Has China concluded that North Korea is on borrowed time? As observed in another Global Times editorial after passage of the new sanctions resolution, Beijing has made clear that it is not prepared to rescue Pyongyang from a “lethal misjudgment” where “the United States and South Korea hold lots of better cards.” It added that UNSCR 2270 “eradicates North Korea’s illusion that it can divide the great powers. The resolution sends a clear signal: there is no future for North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons.”

As China and the other members of the Security Council acknowledge, the sanctions won’t take full effect for a while. But is Pyongyang listening? What happens if it persists in its willful defiance of the international community and develops ways to undermine or circumvent the desired effects of the sanctions? How does China then prepare for the worst with its endlessly troublesome neighbor, and can it work with others to forestall the most severe of potential crises? There are no certain answers to these questions, but China has at last begun to pose them.

      

 

 

Can an intransigent China learn from past experience?

China’s opposition to tougher sanctions remains the principal impediment to a Security Council resolution. Russia seems largely aligned with China, but Beijing (Pyongyang’s immediate neighbor and its primary economic partner) is the much more pivotal actor. Beijing acknowledges the need for additional measures to oppose Pyongyang’s actions, but whether China will consent to language and actions appreciably tougher than in prior resolutions remains very much in doubt. It also objects—as a principle—to states imposing unilateral sanctions, even as Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo begin to undertake such steps.

China is undoubtedly vexed and frustrated by North Korea’s nuclear and missile defiance. But its desultory, almost passive responses to recent developments (including President Xi Jinping’s silence for a full month after the nuclear test) suggests indecision or outright incapacitation in Beijing. China seems almost oblivious to the growing dangers on its doorstep, preferring to retreat into formulaic reiterations of existing policy. 

China seems almost oblivious to the growing dangers on its doorstep, preferring to retreat into formulaic reiterations of existing policy.

Beijing also insists that sanctions cannot be the defining purpose of a Security Council resolution. As stated by Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, “our goal is to bring various parties back to the negotiating table…talks are the only correct path of resolving problems.” But if China is unprepared to cooperate in imposing meaningful costs on Pyongyang, North Korea has no incentives to alter its behavior. 

In addition, Foreign Minister Wang has misrepresented the underlying purpose of multilateral sanctions. He is neglecting the principal lesson from the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 over the former’s nuclear program (a process in which China was a full and very effective participant). The sanctions on Iran were far more comprehensive and punishing than those imposed thus far on North Korea. But they were a means to an end. They exacted sufficient costs on Tehran so that it was ultimately prepared to negotiate an agreement acceptable to all parties.

The North Korean case is starkly different. Pyongyang is the only country to test nuclear weapons in the 21st century and the only state ever to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty. It has enshrined its self-proclaimed status as a nuclear-armed state in the North Korean constitution, and it gives every indication that it plans to indefinitely sustain its program.

Equally important, North Korea retains access to the international economy through its links to China. This has enabled Pyongyang to acquire the funds needed to sustain its nuclear, missile, and space programs and to propitiate the core elites that underpin the Kim family’s claims to absolute power. This financial access is not transforming North Korea into a robust or vibrant economy, but it helps Pyongyang to survive and enables its ruling elites to prosper. 

Going it alone

China thus holds the key to any appreciable change in North Korean behavior. Unless and until it is prepared to cooperate in exacting costs on Pyongyang, North Korea will see no reason to alter its strategy. As long as China rejects more onerous sanctions, the prospect for meaningful diplomatic progress also plummets to near zero. 

Unless and until [China] is prepared to cooperate in exacting costs on Pyongyang, North Korea will see no reason to alter its strategy.

Given China’s intransigence, the next Security Council resolution seems unlikely to be appreciably stronger than prior ones. Under such circumstances, the United States and other immediately affected states will increasingly protect their interests by unilateral measures. 

Seoul’s decision to suspend operations at the Kaesong Industrial Zone (and possibly to cease these activities outright) is the first indication of major policy change, and other measures by the United States and Japan seem likely to follow. This realization ought to be deeply sobering to leaders in Beijing, who as yet seem unprepared to grasp that business as usual with North Korea no longer applies.