1. Russia's relationship with N. Korea remain close, even with the Soviets out of power.
2. More importantly, S. Korea is China's number 3 trading partner. Whatever their strategy is, they need to safeguard their relationship with the South.
My personal theory: The CCP knows that its hold on power is based on maintaining the economy. An unstable Korea hurts China's economy. They know that if the North does anything wild, they can kiss a major engine for economic growth good-bye.
The CCP's worst case scenario: the North violently imploding, taking out much of the South, and thousands of refugees streaming over the border.
Their best case scenario: Unified Korea, under an anti-American gov't. The way things are going in the South, that'll probably happen once Kim dies, or sooner. With a unified Korea the need for American troops there goes away. China would like to see that.
Personally, I think much of what happens in East Asia revolves around two factors:
1. What happens politcally in Taiwan. Will they roll over and accept unification, or eventually declare independance?
2. Japan increasing its stance as a military power.
China is actually in a bad position in both regards. Much of their strategy in the future will be re-active, rather than pro-active, in my opinion.
2. More importantly, S. Korea is China's number 3 trading partner. Whatever their strategy is, they need to safeguard their relationship with the South.
From my rant: You can see the action in that there is pressure to ‘turn’ South Korea.
Trade is just one more way to do so.
My personal theory: The CCP knows that its hold on power is based on maintaining the economy. An unstable Korea hurts China's economy. They know that if the North does anything wild, they can kiss a major engine for economic growth good-bye.
YES! Exactly.
Your post is very good and not all that off from what I am trying to say.
Especially like your worst and best case scenarios.
The Russia and Japan card have not been factored in. I was writing about the Chinese position...
China also knows N. Korea cannot have a good economy without US assistance.
Or US complacency...
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fifty-year structures
One of the important premises on which Chinese assessments about the future security environment are based is the concept of "world structures" (zhanlue shijie geju). (134) This term is used to refer to the design of the world pattern, which, according to Chinese, generally exists for several decades before undergoing a major transformation. Each "world structure" is based on the organization and state of relations among the great nations in the world. The process by which one world strategic pattern gives away to another usually is a major war. One author writes, "A world pattern is the relatively stable international structure formed by the interrelations and interaction between the main forces in the world during a certain historical period. . . . The changes in the world pattern are based on the changes in the relations of the world's main contradictions, and they accompany international and social phenomena such as turbulence, division, alignment and crises, that result in conflicts and war." (135) The basic Chinese catechism identifies four major "world strategic patterns" during the past 200 years. One scholar at CICIR has put together a grid (table 2) illustrating characteristics of the world order in the 20th century.
(table is the link above)
The first world structure, called the "Vienna System" by the Chinese, lasted 40 to 50 years and was set up by the victorious nations who defeated Napoleon. These four powers (Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Britain) established a world structure that was centered entirely on Europe and characterized by mutual bargaining and the use of "spheres of influence" to preserve stability. The second structure, which also lasted 40 to 50 years, was created by internal events in Japan, Italy, Germany, and the United States that destroyed "the original proportions and distributions of strength" and in so doing broke out of the strategic configuration confined to Europe. (136) Although still centered on Europe, this new pattern also expanded to North America and Asia. Briefly, the major developments were the rapid advancement of capitalism in the United States after the Civil War, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, and the political unification of Italy, as well as the unification of Germany in 1870 and its defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
The third world structure derived from the conduct of the powers that won World War I. In a manner similar to the creation of the Vienna System Pattern, the new Versailles System was established by the strong victorious powers (the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan). As had occurred with the Vienna Conference after the Napoleonic Wars, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 "redivided the world" and laid down the rules for the next "era." However, the October Revolution established the Soviet Union in this period and Moscow participated in the Versailles System, which "broke the pattern whereby imperialism ruled the whole world." (137) When discussing this era, several Chinese authors refer to it as the Versailles-Washington System, arguing that the three major treaties signed at the Washington Conference of 1921 played a major role in shaping the world structure of the time. (138)
The fourth world structure is known in China as the Yalta System, a name derived from the Yalta Summit involving the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union in February 1945. Most Chinese claim this conference "carved out the spheres of influence in Europe and Asia for the United States and the Soviet Union." With respect to China, the Yalta Summit included Soviet recognition of "U.S. control over Japan," while the United States in turn "satisfied the Soviet Union's wishes to regain Sakhalin Island, enabled Outer Mongolia to become independent, and enlisted northeast China into the sphere of influence." (139) The Chinese state that the decline of British strength reduced its sphere of influence, so that the Yalta System actually established a world structure of two poles, Washington and Moscow, whose relationship largely determined world politics. The Yalta System endured until 1991, nearly 50 years. Because the core of the Yalta Agreement was the division of Europe and Germany into two parts, Chinese date the end of the Yalta System to the reunification of Germany in 1991. Although the Chinese say the Yalta System has "basically disintegrated," they recognize it continues in Northeast Asia in the division between North Korea and South Korea and in the unresolved territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo over the northern territories. There have been some Chinese references to the unresolved problem of Taiwan's sovereignty also being a part of the Yalta System because Taiwan's legal status was not resolved either at Yalta or the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference.
Within a world structure there is also what is known as a world order (shijie zhixu), or the ways and means by which nations interact and deal with each other:
A world structure refers to a relatively stable international framework and strategic situation formed on the foundation of a certain power balance. A world order then refers to, on the basis of the world structure, the mechanisms and rules of the motion of international relations (such as handling international affairs and international contact). The two have both generalities (both take the power balance as their base) and differences (they do not adapt to one another; if the old structure collapses, the old order probably continues to exist). (140)