A Slap in the Face

China's punctilious Foreign Ministry reserves the word "hanran" 悍然, which translates as brazen or flagrant, for serious affronts to China's national dignity by countries that have historically been rivals or enemies.

When Japan's recently retired prime minister visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which China condemns as honoring Japan's World War II-era militarism, he was described as "brazen." When the United States bombed China's embassy in Belgrade in 1999, Beijing called that act "flagrant." North Korea, a longstanding ideological ally, has had increasingly testy relations with China in recent years. But it was not until Monday, moments after it said it had exploded a nuclear device, that it was accused of a "brazen" violation of its international commitments.

Wordplay is just one indication that the test crossed a not-so-informal red line for China, which has devoted years of painstaking diplomatic effort, and staked its sensitive relationship with Washington, on the promise that it could deliver a peaceful, negotiated solution to the nuclear standoff.

That policy, Chinese analysts say, has failed, and the test leaves Beijing little choice but to take a tougher approach toward its neighbor. But Chinese leaders still see the most punitive sanctions as unpalatable and counterproductive, and the country's elite remains sharply divided over how far to distance itself from Pyongyang and how closely to embrace the Bush administration, several senior Chinese foreign policy experts said...

While China has begun to think like a big power in some respects, its foremost strategic priority has been reclaiming Taiwan, or at least preventing the island from becoming formally independent of mainland China.

Conflict in North Korea or a toppling of Kim Jong Il's regime could upset both of those goals, Chinese analysts say. A war is viewed as the worst outcome, potentially creating a massive wave of refugees into China and even risking a broader engagement that could threaten what has been an extended period of harmony in Northeast Asia.

But peaceful change in North Korea could conceivably bring a new pro- American government to China's northeastern border, even as Beijing faces continuing uncertainty over how to handle the pro-American government in Taiwan, off its southeastern coast.

"China must continue to look at North Korea through the prism of Taiwan," Shen said. "You cannot expect China to completely abandon its ally while America continues to back Taiwan and allow the independence movement to thrive there." Equally, however, China cannot afford to alienate the United States, analysts say. It has also recently taken steps to repair its frayed relationship with Japan. Those ties may well depend on moving to punish North Korea for the nuclear test and at least experimenting to see if firm pressure on Pyongyang brings it back to the bargaining table.

China provides by some estimates 70 percent of Pyongyang's fuel and food needs, and could almost certainly create severe economic hardship there by slowing shipments across its long, barren border...

Zhang Liangui, an expert on North Korea at the Central Party School, a party-run think tank in Beijing....said the test amounted to a slap in the face for China. Even if the goal remains a negotiated solution, he said, Beijing must first show that it is prepared to take a much tougher line before Pyongyang will bargain in earnest.

And also this:

North Korea's apparently successful nuclear test has sent shock waves through international capitals and promises to alter the security landscape of North Asia in alarming ways. But it creates an especially difficult diplomatic challenge to China and Chinese leader Hu Jintao.

Long seen as Pyongyang's most important ally and the only country with enough leverage to influence Kim Jong Il's behavior, the Chinese President had engaged in an extraordinary flurry of diplomacy since Pyongyang announced its intention to go nuclear a week ago. On Sunday Beijing took the unusual step of hosting Japan's new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, on an official visit to Beijing. Hu met Abe for a top-level summit that thawed a half-decade of chilly Sino-Japanese relations. And the rapprochement took place amidst surprisingly positive atmospherics, with both Chinese and Japanese officials heralding a turning point for the better in their ties. Clearly, the urgency of the North Korean threat had been a catalyst for the summit's remarkably positive tone. A Japanese official traveling with Abe called it the first step in a new personal relationship of trust.

Abe said both sides agreed that a North Korea nuclear test would not be tolerated, and a joint statement called such a development unacceptable—the toughest public language to date that China has used to try to keep the lid on Kim's nuclear ambitions.

Chinese authorities reckoned—or at least hoped—that this unprecedented departure from Beijing's earlier reluctance to censure Pyongyang publicly would deter the North Korean leader from following through on his threat to conduct a nuclear test. In a Beijing press conference late Sunday evening, Abe had stated that North Korea was certainly watching the [Sino-Japanese] summit closely, and we have sent a very strong message.

But obviously not strong enough. When the date of the summit—Oct. 8—passed without Pyongyang conducting a test, some analysts began to speculate that the united front presented by Tokyo and Beijing had deterred Kim from following through on his threats. Beforehand, regional analysts had expected an Oct. 8 test because that day was the anniversary of Kim's ascension to head the ruling Worker's party in Pyongyang in 1997.

But such speculation that Kim was staying his hand turned out to be grimly premature. Hu has another reason to be furious with Kim. Sunday was also the opening day of a key four-day Chinese communist party plenum in Beijing, during which Hu was slated to begin the political maneuvering required to reshuffle personnel and orchestrate his own succession. Now that important party conference is in shambles, upstaged by Kim's nuclear test.

The big question now is whether Hu will decide to reverse China's longstanding opposition to the use of economic sanctions against Pyongyang. Beijing provides more than 70 percent of North Korea's fuel supplies and a third of its food imports—but has been extremely reluctant to pull the plug on this pipeline for fear of destabilizing the Pyongyang regime. For several days in March 2003, Beijing stopped fuel supplies to North Korea in a bid to influence Pyongyang to join the Beijing-sponsored six-party talks (among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S.). But Beijing never publicly owned up to the shut-off and its diplomats later tried to explain it as the unintended consequences of a mechanical breakdown.

Now, China's policy of sticking to diplomatic tactics—such as the unusual Hu-Abe summit Sunday—has proved to be too little, too late...

Beijing's biggest fear is that jitters over North Korea's nukes might trigger a spiraling nuclear arms race in North Asia, with Tokyo, Seoul and even Taiwan tempted by the prospect of developing nuclear weapons in self defense. Clearly, North Korea is betting that the global anti-proliferation regimes are in such tatters that Pyongyang will be allowed to follow in the footsteps of India and Pakistan, which have weathered the international brouhaha after their own nuclear tests in the late 90's and are now both U.S. allies. Now it's up to China—and the rest of the world—to prove Kim wrong.