KOREAN PENINSULA: United States Strategically Undercut By China

KOREAN PENINSULA: United States Strategically Undercut By China

By Dr Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

Strategically and with historical significance, the Korean Peninsula was the first major battleground for armed conflict between the United States and the newly emergent Communist China in the early Fifties of the Twentieth Century. China strategically challenged the awesome military might of the United States as the sole nuclear power then when China’s military strength was still primitive and dependent on massed military manpower.

China then perceived that the Korean Peninsula if allied to or under control of the United States would rob China of strategic depth to its vital North Eastern heartland of what was earlier known as Manchuria and had been conquered by Japan.

Unable to conquer the Korean Peninsula by military might though the Chinese Army had virtually reached Pusan on the southern tip of the Peninsula and when they were pushed back by United Nations Forces, primarily United States, under the brilliant strategic and military leadership of General Douglas Macarthur.

General Macarthur planned to cross the Yalu River into China to put an end to the Chinese menace. Unfortunately, in one of those incidents where just to emphasize the principle of civil control over the military, General Macarthur was forced to quit by US President Truman for disagreeing with him. History would have been different had General Macarthur’s strategic blueprint been adopted by the United States political leadership and so also the security architecture of North East Asia and East Asia.

As a result of the ensuing stalemate, the Korean Peninsula ended up like Germany as a nation divided at the 38^th Parallel and continues as such till today. North Korea initially under Soviet influence but soon replaced by China as the strategic patron of this despotic Communist state is more renowned for its ‘rogue state’ appellation like China’s similar strategic protégé Pakistan.

South Korea by contrast with US aid and assistance has emerged with a strong economy and a democratic structure in marked contrast to its Northern cousins.

The Korean Peninsula today still figures as Asia’s leading ‘military flashpoint’ with massed military forces of both North Korea and South Korea confronting each other across the “ Asian Berlin Fence” which defines the 2.5 km wide armistice zone running across the width of the Peninsula. Technically, the two divided Korea are in a ‘state of war’ as no peace treaty between the two has since been signed.

China has not made any serious or substantial efforts to rein-in the military adventurism of its client-state of North Korea. On the contrary, China has supplied North Korea with long range missiles technology with IRBM ranges.

China indirectly through its other ‘rogue state’ client state of Pakistan has facilitated provision of nuclear weapons technology to North Korea.

To satisfy international opinion and project the image of a responsible power, China makes all the right rhetorical noises of ‘peace and stability’ on the Korean Peninsula but deliberately desists from holding back its client-state of North Korea from generating military turbulence and uncertainty in North East Asia.

The United States strategically distracted by its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan has neglected the North East Asian security environment mistakenly under the impression that China would act responsibly in the region. On the contrary, the ‘strategic neglect’ of the Korean Peninsula by the United States in the last decade or so has emboldened China to strategically undercut the United States in the pursuance of its strategic objectives.

Contextually, this Paper attempts to focus on the following related aspects pertaining to the Korean Peninsula.

China’s Strategic Interests in the Korean Peninsula
China’s Strategic Undercutting of the United States in the Korean Peninsula
China Fears Emergence of a Unified Korea
Is China a Responsible Regional Actor for Ensuring Peace and Stability on the Korean Peninsula

China’s Strategic Interests in the Korean Peninsula

China today as one of the strongest powers challenging American global supremacy views the Korean Peninsula in stark geostrategic terms in relation to China’s long –range strategy of pushing out the United States from North East Asia and conversely the use of the Korean Peninsula by the United States to threaten China by use of the land-routes that open up from the Korean Peninsula into China’s vital strategic industrial heartland of North East China.

The Korean Peninsula prominently juts out geographically from North East China and ends up in close vicinity of Japan. The Korean Peninsula if under China’s control would enable China to strategically, militarily and politically dominate and coerce Japan. Proximity to Japan would also enable China to neutralize the deterrent postures of the United States maintained by US Forces forward military presence in Japan.

Conversely even with a truncated Korean Peninsula facilitating US Forces forward military presence at South Korean military bases provides the United States with a ‘strategic foothold’ on the Asian Continent which could be enlarged in a military contingency to pose a direct military threat to China, even an existential one.

China’s present threat perceptions focus more on the above than on China’s military capability to over-run the whole of the Korean Peninsula.

China’s Strategic Undercutting of the United States in the Korean Peninsula

The US-China effusive rhetoric stressing peace and stability should not fool anyone on the undercurrent of strategic hostility that exists between these to rival nations glaring at each other across the Pacific. China chafes at the existence of US Mutual Security Treaties with South Korea and Japan and also these countries hosting sizeable US Forces presence on their soil.

Exploiting the ‘strategic neglect’ of North East Asia by the United States occasioned by its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, China’s strategic undercutting of the United States in the region can be said to have manifested itself in the following forms with the focus more on South Korea:

South Korea was aggressively wooed by China both politically and economically especially under the last South Korean President. The strategic aim was to distance South Korea both from the United States and Japan and thereby loosening the US security architecture in the region.
China-inspired psychological propaganda aimed at the young generation of South Koreans was unleashed painting US interests and presence in South Korea in lurid colors. Local issues irritants were exploited to raise anti-American sentiments.
It is reported that in some propaganda campaigns North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile arsenals were projected as not aimed at South Korea but deployed to target the United States and Japan
After years of Six Party negotiations in which the United States conceded more to North Korean blackmail than North Korea conceded any gains to USA, China has deliberately stood aside as a passive observer. It has not motivated its military client to yield on denuclearization.
China through the use of its soft power strengths and in subtle forms has sought to drive wedges between USA and South Korea and between South Korea and Japan

Conforming to its traditional permissiveness of condoning China’s trespasses against US strategic interests in this region and elsewhere the United States has not demonstrated that it has taken a serious note of China undercutting the United States strategically on the Korean Peninsula

China Fears Emergence of a Unified Korea

The reunification of the Korean Peninsula has been the subject of a couple of UN Resolutions to ensure peace and stability in the region. Yet beyond mere rhetoric none of the major powers including the United States have actively resorted to push it through. A re-unified Korea with its massive military strengths and nuclear and missiles arsenal has the potential to upset the delicate balance of power in the region.

Of all the major powers whose strategic interests intersect in the Korean Peninsula, it is China that fears most the emergence of a re-unified Korea. By all research studies and strategic forecasts the overwhelming opinion is that a unified Korea is most likely to continue to be aligned as a US ally in the region. Though the paths towards Korean re-unification are clouded in an uncertain debate whether it would follow a graduated path, or a regime collapse in North Korea or an all out war, the end result would be the same, most likely.

China therefore has grave strategic fears on Korean reunification as a unified Korea and possibly as a US ally would facilitate a United States military presence bang on China’s borders in North East China.

Is China a Responsible Regional Actor for Ensuring Peace and Stability on the Korean Peninsula?

China judged primarily on its demonstrated record of not restraining ‘rogue state’ military adventurism of its client-state of North Korea and further building up its strategic assets does not qualify to be considered as a responsible regional actor for ensuring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Significantly, what the world needs to note is that China with all its massive economic resources has not applied them towards emergence of North Korea as an economically advanced state on the lines that the United States and Japan invested in South Korea’s future.

China has deliberately kept North Korea as an underdeveloped and economically backward state to be used as a strategic pawn and pressure point in China’s power games with the United States and Japan.

China has and had all the leverages to discipline North Korea but China has all along desisted from the same. North Korea as an impoverished state is strategic insurance for China as any economic advancement would loosen North Korea from Chinese tutelage.

Concluding Observations

The United States needs to wake-up from its strategic obliviousness towards its strategic stakes in the Korean Peninsula. It needs to regain the strategic space lost to China which virtually succeeded in weaning away South Korea from the US orbit of influence.

China is not a responsible regional actor for working towards peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula as its demonstrated record indicates. It would be strategically naive for the United States to outsource Korean Peninsula peace and stability to China, believing its rhetorical assertions.

The United States needs to review its policy formulations on the Korean Peninsula. It needs to actively espouse Korean re-unification as a strategic imperative to ensure that a unified Korea continues as a strong US ally and in the process the United States can effectively checkmate China in the region.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email: drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)