US-China Relations Report, Vol. 5
US-China Relations and the Korean Peninsula

Hideya Kurata(Professor, National Defense Academy of Japan)*This report is part of the research findings of “US-China Relations and International
Relations centered on the United States and China” (US-China Relations Research Group),
which is a sub-project of the fiscal 2015 Japan Institute of International Affairs project “Major
Developments in the US and China and US-China Relations amidst Turmoil in theInternational Order.”*This report is a translated version of the paper originally posted on Sep. 15, 2015.
http://www2.jiia.or.jp/RESR/column_page.php?id=246
I. Ad Hoc “Concert of Power” and Potential Causes of Disruption
The history of US initiatives for multilateral arrangements on the Korean Peninsula is long.
As evidenced in the initiatives proposed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the United
Nations General Assembly in 1975 and 1976, the United States from early on had presented
to North Korea—which insisted on bilateral talks with the United States sans the People’s
Republic of China—the idea of discussing a transition from the armistice agreement to apeace agreement, among other issues, in a multilateral framework involving China. TheUnited States envisaged a plan of coaxing North Korea into dialogue with the Republic ofKorea and consigning resolution of principal issues, including the development of a peace
regime, to the two Koreas. As North-South tensions eased, it would gradually scale back its
military commitment to South Korea. After the end of the Cold War, this line of thinking wassucceeded by the four-power forum proposed by Secretary of State James Baker.
China, meanwhile, had been supportive of North Korea’s proposal to leave itself out of thepicture during the Cold War. In the post-Cold War era, however, it sought to rein in North
Korea’s pro-US inclination—which it could not control through bilateral relations—by taking
part in multilateral talks. The Four-Party Peace talks (between China, the United States, andNorth and South Korea) that began in 1996 were the outcome of China’s aligning with aproposal by the United States and South Korea on establishing peace in the Korean
1Peninsula.
With regard to North Korea’s nuclear development, tripartite talks among China, North
Korea, and the United States took place due to both China and the United States wanting toresolve the issue at a regional level with North Korean involvement rather than through theUN Security Council; this grew into six-party talks with the addition of Japan, Russia, andSouth Korea. Multilateral talks for peace in the Korean Peninsula are in themselves proof
that there exist a host of issues on which the United States and China can cooperate. At
least to date, there has been no strong security dilemma between the two countries
regarding the Korean Peninsula and, in summit meetings between US President Barack
Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Korean Peninsula has topped the list ofissues for bilateral cooperation.1 Throughout this time, tensions between the United States
and China over strictly bilateral issues have never spilled over into the multilateral talks. So it
is that these efforts have been described as an ad hoc “concert of power” between the twostates.
North and South Korea, however, have different—even contrasting—takes on this ad hoc
concert of power. North Korea views the US-Chinese concert as “control” by these powers.
As for South Korea, while US-Chinese “collusion” would be out of the question, it is looking
to gain a stronger voice by capitalizing on the US-Chinese concert, whether regarding theestablishment of peace or North Korea’s nuclear development.
II. “Nuclear Deterrence” Against the United States and Strategic Flexibility: Ambiguityof the US Rebalance
North Korea’s reinforcement of its “nuclear deterrence” against the United States waseffective in bringing about an axial shift from a US-Chinese attempt at “control” to a US–
DPRK axis. After the first nuclear test by North Korea the center of negotiations shifted tothe United States, and the six-party talks turned into a place for confirming the content ofthese negotiations. Furthermore, out of fear that North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability
will become a fait accompli by virtue of its repeated nuclear tests, the United States has
been demanding that the former make visible denuclearization efforts, and neither bilateralnor multilateral talks have seen progress. In this context, another avenue that North Korea
believed would be effective in shifting the axis of negotiations to the United States and itself
was the use of force against South Korea.

Its sinking of the South Korean navy vessel

Cheonan and bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, the year after its second nuclear2test, were intended to bring the United States to the negotiating table.
Meanwhile South Korea, which has piggybacked on US-Chinese cooperation, was also
facing a risk that could disrupt the ad hoc concert of power; the restructuring of the US
military presence on its soil, plans for which have been under way since the time of theGeorge W. Bush administration, has created the possibility of South Korea representing ahedge against China. The US-ROK alliance is a localized alliance, the functions of which aremostly limited to deterring the North Korean threat, and consists primarily of ground forces.
However, if and when the main troops of United States Forces Korea move to the city ofPyeongtaek facing the Yellow Sea and strengthen their coordination with South Korea’s airand naval forces, the alliance will ascend to a regional one with an eye on China as well.
This is what is commonly referred to as the “strategic flexibility” of USFK.

As has been

discussed largely negatively in South Korea, though, the country is bound to get caught up
in a tug-of-war between the United States and China if USFK were to become a hedge
against China.
At the same time, this has also given rise to concerns of entrapment on China’s part. China
not only strongly objected to US plans to conduct joint military exercises with South Korean
forces in the Yellow Sea in response to North Korea’s military attacks on South Korea butalso, when North Korea threatened the South in the spring of 2013 after declaring that it wasscrapping its non-aggression pact with the latter, Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that Chinawould allow no troublemaking on its doorstep.2 While directed at both the United States andNorth Korea, the warning was also an expression of concern that tensions on the Korean
Peninsula might lead to discord with the United States.
The realignment of US forces in South Korea has, moreover, been inextricably linked to theissue of returning the authority of “wartime” operational control (OPCON) to the South
Korean military. The transfer was initially planned for April 2012, but South Korean President
Lee Myung-bak and US President Obama agreed to delay it to 2015. The Strategic Alliance2015 plan that was developed in the wake of this decision stipulated that the transition ofwartime OPCON would be synchronized with the move of US forces to Pyeongtaek, both ofwhich were to be completed by the end of 2015. Sure enough, when the plan came underreview at the US-ROK Security Consultative Meeting of October 2014 and the OPCON
transfer was once again postponed, the move of US forces to Pyeongtaek was also halted, if
only partially. This does not mean, however, that plans to restructure the US forces in South3

Korea have been dismissed altogether or that the concept of strategic flexibility has been
negated.
South Korea will continue to be reluctant about engaging in antagonistic behavior toward
China. The Obama administration’s “rebalance to Asia” policy is essentially directed toward
the People’s Liberation Army Navy of China and, as such, is geographically focused on theSouth China Sea. The Korean People’s Navy of North Korea does not have much of aregional presence, and the US naval and marine forces in South Korea, consisting only ofsupport units, are unlikely to serve as hedges against China. Whereas South Korea draws
on the term rebalance in advocating reinforcement of the US-ROK alliance to counter
military attacks by North Korea, the United States does not consider North Korea’s largely
land-based threat on South Korea to be a major component of its rebalance policy. Thus,
while both countries use the same term, there is evidently a substantial difference in what it
signifies for the United States and for South Korea.
III. Strategic Flexibility on the Missile Issue: THAAD Deployment in South Korea
One issue that illustrates well how North and South Korea view US-China relations is thedeployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system to SouthKorea. THAAD would not go into action unless China were to launch a missile attack on
South Korea, as it is an interceptor system designed to engage incoming missiles in theterminal phase. China objects to its deployment nonetheless, the reason being the radarsystem that comes with it. As noted above, the Bush administration’s plans to give the US
forces in South Korea strategic flexibility were mostly frozen at the 2014 Security
Consultative Meeting. Still, if a THAAD system in South Korea has the potential to include
China, this would mean that strategic flexibility remains in the area of missile defense.
It is said that the United States and South Korea have never engaged in concrete
discussions on THAAD deployment to the latter. Although the South Korean army is keen on
deployment, Seoul has maintained a position of non-decision. South Korea’s hesitation tohost a THAAD system and China’s strong opposition to it both come down to the same
reason: the strategic flexibility of the US presence in South Korea is manifested in thequestion of THAAD deployment.
On North Korea’s part, THAAD provides an excellent means of causing a rift between theUnited States and China, as well as being an obvious target of criticism due to its potential
4

of neutralizing North Korean ballistic missile attacks on South Korea, thus constituting
deterrence by denial. In the fall of 2014, when the possibility of THAAD deployment to South
Korea first arose, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun called the plan a “product of the military
strategy of the United States aimed at destroying the strategic balance in the region andoverpowering neighboring countries” and criticized the United States for “relying on astrategy of oppressing potential adversaries in the region that confront it, particularly China,
by besieging and restraining them militarily.” The same commentary also spoke for Chineseconcerns, pointing out that the X-band radar that would be deployed with THAAD has adetection range of “1,000 kilometers, putting China’s major regions within its range.”3
As seen above, the reason why multilateral talks have stalled despite having been launchedcan be described thus: even though there exist a host of issues regarding the Korean
Peninsula that the United States and China could work together on, there is a large
discrepancy between North and South Korean perceptions of what constitutes appropriate
US-Chinese relations. If the deployment of THAAD in South Korea were to bring
US-Chinese tensions to the Korean Peninsula, it is uncertain whether or not the UnitedStates and China would still move forward with multilateral talks on issues on which theycould cooperate.
* The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author’s alone and do not
represent the views of the Japan Ministry of Defense or the National Defense Academy ofJapan.

1CIIS yanjiu baogao; zhongmei fenqi guankong de lilun yu shijian- yi zhengzhi, jingji, anquan wei shijue[CIIS Research Report: The Theory and Practice of Controlling Chinese-US Discord—From thePerspectives of Politics, the Economy, and Security], Beijing: Zhongguo guoji wenti yanjiuyuan, 2015,
pp. 39–40.
2Wang Yi, “Jianchi heping fazhan shixian minzu fuxing zhongguomeng [Firmly Maintaining PeacefulDevelopment and Realizing China’s Dream of National Revitalization],” Xuexi shibao (February 17,2014).
3
Ri Hak-nam, “Rash Act That Destroys the Strategic Balance in the Region,” Rodong Sinmun(September 2, 2014).

5