Abstract
Despite international pressure to condemn North Korea (DPRK), China’s successive leaderships have dealt carefully with Pyongyang, especially vis-à-vis its nuclear weapons program. This moderate stance reflects the two countries’ decades-long relationship, summarised in the Chinese idiom that Pyongyang and Beijing are “as close as lips and teeth”. Nevertheless, the DPRK’s third nuclear test in February 2013 raised enormous challenges for the new Xi Jinping leadership to maintain the previous DPRK policy focused on the status quo and stability on the Korean Peninsula. China’s attitudes and policies towards the DPRK after the provocative third test signified a possible reorientation of Beijing’s DPRK policy. This generated repercussions in the countries concerned and prompted debates among experts. This article asks how these events should be understood and what their implications are for the Xi leadership’s policy on the DPRK, the stability of the Korean Peninsula, and Northeast Asia. Given China’s competitive relations with other major powers, we conclude that the Xi leadership will not abandon the DPRK; indeed it will reinforce the policy of strengthening China’s influence over it. Nonetheless one aspect of doing so will involve China opening up to other – cooperative, multilateral – approaches to reinforcing stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.
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