Why doesn’t China rein in North Korea?

By J.P. | BEIJING

NORTH KOREA is nothing but trouble for China, its main international backer. The day before Xi Jinping, China’s president, was to due to meet his American counterpart for their first summit, Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, ordered yet another ballistic-missile test, thumbing his nose at both presidents and putting on full display his country’s capacity and willingness to cause trouble. Officially, China wants the Korean peninsula to be free of nuclear weapons. Yet the North has dramatically stepped up its weapons programme. The trial of a medium-range missile on April 5th brought to seven the number of missiles tested this year, one of which failed. It has also tested the first-stage rocket of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting America. Last year it conducted two nuclear tests, put a satellite into orbit and experimented with a submarine-launched missile for the first time. China can hardly benefit from having an aggressive, nuclear-armed and extremely unpredictable neighbour. Why doesn’t it do more to rein Mr Kim in?

China has done something. It agreed to abide by the most recent round of United Nations economic sanctions on the North and in February suspended its purchases of North Korean coal for the rest of the year. Coal is the largest source of foreign exchange for the isolated country. Mr Xi is widely thought to be furious at Mr Kim, blaming him for the assassination in February of his own half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, who had close ties to China and had lived in Macau under Chinese protection. The trouble is that while Chinese policy has changed a little, American policy seems to be changing a lot. “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will,” Donald Trump recently told the Financial Times. “The policy of strategic patience has ended,” his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said in March, adding, “All options are on the table.” For the Americans, the threat of a North Korean ICBM capable of hitting California is proving a game-changer.

Yet even though China fears unilateral American action, it seems unlikely to make radical policy changes to forestall it. Two old reasons for backing the regime in the North have as much force as ever: China does not want the reunification of the Korean peninsula if it creates a single, larger American ally on its border. And millions of North Koreans might flee from the collapse of their country into China, exporting instability into China’s three north-eastern provinces, which are among the most economically depressed in the country. There are also three newer reasons. First, the North’s missiles are not, for the moment, pointed at China. But they could be if China turns on its protégé. Second, China does not perceive a North Korean ICBM as a profound threat in the way that the Americans do. Lastly, China is worried about South Korea’s plans to deploy an American anti-missile system, called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD, which it claims is really aimed at its own missiles. So it continues to align itself with the North against the South. China, it seems, cares more about other countries’ reaction to North Korea’s belligerence than the belligerence itself.

This is why North Korea, along with trade, will test the relationship between China and America at the summit meeting today, April 6th. If China resists an American attempt to push back against Mr Kim’s aggression, it could well make highly dangerous outcomes more likely—though they remain remote. These could be anything from an American military strike against North Korean missile sites to a decision by South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons. Instead of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, the result could be proliferation there.