Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

China fears North change of regime

China has stationed an estimated 30,000 troops on the North Korean border to stem the inflow of a rising number of North Koreans.
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There supposedly is a defection of North Korean generals to China and China has created a buffer regime.

130 North Korean generals defected to China, about 10 percent of the military elite.

Of this group, the most significant, he said, are four who have been integrated into active duty with the Chinese military in the Shenyang district, along the Korean border.

Now, the South Korean editor speculated, China may be forming a fallback plan should Kim Jong Il prove incapable of reforming or holding on to power. "The scenario the Chinese are looking into is to make a buffer regime through such North Korean general defectors," he said.
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-Am

China fears North change of regime

Martin Parry


May 13, 2005




China is more concerned about regime meltdown in North Korea than its development of nuclear weapons and is unlikely to cave in to US calls to cut oil supplies and exercise more "robust diplomacy,'' according to analysts.

``There is no question that China fears instability and regime change in North Korea more than it fears nuclear weapons,'' said Brad Glosserman, a North Asia expert at the Pacific Forum, a foreign policy research institute.

``China wants North Korea as a buffer state, it wants Kim Jong Il in power. They know him, and they know he is not the threat the US makes him out to be.

``The big question would be who would take Kim's place. There are still people in North Korea worse than Kim ... without his restraint.''

The United States is ratcheting up pressure on China to push its neighbor harder to return to six-party talks on its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Washington is counting on China to persuade it back to the stalled negotiations that also include Russia, Japan and South Korea.


But Beijing has so far resisted any punitive actions, rebuffing a request by Washington to cut oil supplies to the insular and unpredictable Marxist state.

David Zweig, a political analyst at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said this stance would likely continue.

Like Glosserman, he agrees that collapse of the Kim dictatorship, which could be precipitated by sanctions, would be a disaster that China is not willing to let happen.

``A meltdown of the regime is of more concern that developing nuclear weapons,'' he said.

``They are afraid of any scenario that would precipitate collapse. It could easily cause millions of refugees to flood over the border into China, South Korea could take over North Korea, US troops could be on China's border.''

Beijing's reluctance to act, however, would change if North Korea carried out a nuclear test, according to Dong-bok Lee, a Seoul-based security affairs expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

``Down the road... China has in its mind the possibility of imposing ... sanctions,'' he said.

``If there is a nuclear test, China will take this very seriously and it would move to the next stage of its policy and that could be sanctions.

``There would be a very big chance that China would also agree to bring the matter to the Security Council.''




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