A Realistic Approach to Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone:
A Chinese View
Paper for Workshop on Denuclearization of Northeast Asia and of the World
September 14-15, 2014
TokyoShen Dingli
September 15, 2014

1. China and NEA NWFZ
The notion of a Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (NEA NWFZ)
could certainly entice China, depending upon its exact substance. The type ofNEA NWFZ that Dr. Morton Halperin has proposed, as in his Comprehensive
Agreement on Peace and Security in Northeast Asia, suggests a future when theKorean Peninsula and Japan are nuclear weapons free, while the nuclear
weapons stakeholders defined by the NPT, including China, will remain intact
in terms of their nuclear status under such a scheme.
The aforementioned Agreement brings no harm to China, as China will benefit
from such a zone. First, the proposed agreement aspires to bring a permanentpeace, rather than a mere ceasefire, to the two Koreas, and China’s peripherywill be therefore more secure and stable. Second, respective declaration of
no-hostile intent will strengthen mutual trust and help consolidate theagreement per se. Third, offering civilian energy cooperation amongst
members, including nuclear power, is the right balance warranted by the NPT
so long as the fear of nuclear proliferation is dispelled for sure.
Meantime this proposal brings no burden to China. China has long supported
various sorts of regional nuclear weapons free zones around the globe, except
for Southeast Asia where the Treaty of Bangkok has raised some controversy
concerning maritime geographical coverage between the ASEAN and China.
China doesn’t transfer nuclear weapons to and deploy its own nuclear weapons
in any such zones.
Its long-held declaratory policy of no-use of nuclear
weapons against any non-nuclear weapons states has automatically showcased
its intent not to threat counties within any such zones. China has also agreed
not to sail its nuclear weapons-loaded submarines into such zones.
Therefore, China would welcome a scheme as Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapons
Free Zone, where it can benefit without significant additional security
commitment, as the present formula has neither demanded that China to cut its
nuclear forces nor suggested that China re-deploy its nuclear arms at home soas to allow its east part to be nuclear weapons free.
1In reality, China has long led the Six Party Talks since 2003, with its hope tomake the DPRK to commit not to developing its nuclear weapons, in the nameof a nuclear weapons free Korean Peninsula. As long as ROK and Japan will
stay within this conception as non-nuclear weapons states to negotiate with theDPRK, such a process shall enhance the chance of nuclear stability inNortheast Asia.
2. The DPRK and nuclear weapons
Since the Six Party Talks were launched in Beijing more than a decade ago,
however, any idealists of nuclear arms control and disarmament concerning theDPRK shall be rather dismayed. Instead of committing to at least nuclear
self-refraining, the DPRK has well pushed beyond the nuclear threshold – it
has not only continued its fissile material operation, possibly on both plutonium
and uranium, but also conducted three nuclear tests already, plus shooting
missiles as well as projectiles, as called “satellites”, into space.
If there were quite a number of analysts and policymakers who believed in, ten
years ago, the possibility to reversing the nuclear course of the DPRK throughnegotiation and swapping benefits with commitments among various
stakeholders, by now most of them are pessimistic. In fact there have always
been two schools thus far who believe in either conditional institutionalism orhyperrealism, in regard to the eventuality of the DPRK nuclear future.
The former school still trusts in the power of negotiation and mutualconditional concession. The recent making of ceasefire agreement between
Kiev government and those opposition parties in the eastern Ukraine has
refreshed hope to this school. In the case of the DPRK nuclear weapons
program, it is hoped that as long as the Pyongyang regime still want both “fishand bear paw” – a Chinese idiom indicating competing objectives hard to attainat the same time – then it is likely to manage the trade between security andeconomy within the Hermit Kingdom leadership, as well as the bargain
between the DPRK and its neighbors.
In this spirit, China has transformed itself from a hard realist into a suspiciousidealist. Before 2002, China was of the view that the nuclear issue of theDPRK was an issue between Pyongyang and Washington: it is the US threatthat had invited the DPRK’s nuclear reaction, so it is up to the US to fix theproblem rather than asking China to be responsible. Were the US uninterested
in reducing its tangible threat to the DPRK, China would not be effective infacilitating their reconciliation which shall be the base of a meaningful nuclearsolution.

2This passive view started to change under the Hu Jintao administration, coming
into power in 2002 and ushering a page of history to turn a problem of which
China is not a source to a solution from which China can benefit. The
China-led Six Party Talks (6PT) has changed Chinese image as a passive
participant of international system under Deng Xiaoping’s reform age. The
Six Party Talks, as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), aresimple facts that China has behaved more proactively.
Through working with the three generations of the DPRK leadership in the last
decade, China has met various frustrations, and by now more fully understoodPyongyang’s nuclear strategy and tactics. Without excluding the slightest
theoretical chance that the DPRK would still recommit to nuclear abandonment,
China starts to suspect if the DPRK would opt for disarming its nuclear
wherewithal even when given a best possible offer. Undoubtedly, the swingof US position on this issue – from Clinton’s engagement, to Bush’s
denouncing “axis of evils” and preempting one of them, Iraq, to Obama’s cold
distancing, has made the reversing of the problem even more difficult.
3. The hard realistic perspective
The other school of international politics has attached more importance torealism, which stresses fear, security, and power as main variables to explain
real politique and international relations. In this theorem, the US has todevelop nuclear weapons so as to prevent nuclear threat from Nazi Germany,and has to drop the atomic bombs to retaliate against Japan. To prevent both
Germany and Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons after the WWII, America
has to take the burden to provide nuclear shield for these two countries.
Lately the US has to reassert the NATO and US-Japan alliance, both with anuclear component, to assure Berlin and Tokyo at a time of Russia and China’s
fast rise.
In the same vein, China has to develop its own nuclear weapons under
America’s nuclear bluff. Despite its military alliance with the USSR, which
naturally included a nuclear coverage, China would still want to build its own
nuclear deterrent. Now that its security alliance with the former Soviet Union
is gone, and with the US as the sole superpower which keeps selling advanced
weaponry to Taiwan, a part of China, China perceives more need to retain its
nuclear weaponry. Given the US “rebalancing” in Asia Pacific, America isrelocating half of its global naval asset to the West Pacific, clearly for thepurpose of checking and balancing China. This would perhaps warrant
China’s need to further modernize its own deterrent, nuclear and conventional.
The entire Northeast Asia has been under the nuclear shadow for long time.
On the one hand, the US has provided extended nuclear deterrence to its allies,3Japan and ROK, till this time. America has deployed nuclear weapons in atleast ROK and Taiwan, and possibly in Japan. Though Japan has declared a“three non-nuclear principles,” it used to manage secret nuclear pact with theUS. In addition, South Korea and Taiwan turned to their indigenous nuclear
weapons programs when the US seemed to be less committal to their security
in 1970s to counter the Soviet global expansion. Only through reassuring
ROK and Taiwan, the US was able to stop their nuclear weapons programs.
Similarly, only through reaffirming with a credible security umbrella, America
will be able to persuade Japan not to opt for nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, the DPRK may perceive more threat nowadays than ever.
With the demise of the Soviet Union, the DPRK has lost Soviet/Russia security
protection. While China nominally still maintains its only military alliancewith the DPRK so far, Beijing is neither willing to reaffirm the existence ofsuch a legal bond, nor to be explicit in obliging itself to defend the latter. On
the contrary, China has joined the US and American allies to press the DPRK todenuclearize. For a hyperrealist country like the DPRK, it has to count solely
on itself after defense partnerships with other countries are all gone though
security threats as perceived by it have stayed.
Then, a nuclear deterrent is naturally the DPRK’s current choice. As long as
Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons are for security purpose, it will not trade it foranything else. It is apparent that the DPRK has also, from time to time in thepast, pretended to trade bomb for life, but that could be interpreted as its tactics
rather than a strategy. The DPRK has played the games, repeatedly, to gaininternational economic aid for its nuclear restraint. But when it comes tochoose exclusively either for the bomb or carrot, its answer so far has beenclear. In a pessimistic tone, one has to admit that without a regime change, it
might be virtually impossible to denuclearize the DPRK.
4. The DPRK and NEA NWFZ
Presently, the DPRK is far closer to nuclear weapons status then it was adecade ago when the Six Party Talks had just opened. As stated above, at thislate stage, it is nearly unlikely the DPRK would relinquish its nuclear bomb
program whatever any other countries might do.
To mitigate nuclear threat in Northeast Asia, the right approach then might bemore realistic and pertinent to the reality. This may require two steps beyond
Comprehensive Agreement on Peace and Security – for the DPRK, freezing
and incremental reducing its nuclear arsenal; and for the US, acting rather thanpromising no threat, and normalizing relations with the DPRK as long as thelatter would accept nuclear freeze and graduate deduction.

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To begin with, it is necessary to place the bar at a reasonable height. The US
has not only accepted Israel’s nuclear weapons program, but also virtuallyaccepted India and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programs despite initialsanctions against them. Given the “911” terrorist attack, the US has accorded
Pakistan with “non-NATO ally” status to qualify American security partnershipand military aid. To respond to China’s fast ascendance, the US has waived
nuclear sanctions on India, initially imposed since India conducted nuclear
blast for “peaceful purpose” in 1974. Nevertheless, few years after India
tested its nuclear weapons in 1998, the US lifted its sanctions, demonstrating its
foreign policy realism, for lining up with India and hedging against China.
One has to understand that the DPRK is not much different from India andPakistan. It must expect to be treated the same by the US, forgiving its pastand ongoing nuclear development for the sake of geostrategic reasons. Itmust also look at the Iranian nuclear program. Given Iran’s highly suspicious
nuclear development, the US has refrained itself in the past decade, andforestalled Israel’s possible preemption, despite all Iran’s noncompliance withvarious UNSC resolutions disallowing it to enrich any uranium. By now, theUS has to accept Iran’s limited development of uranium enrichment andnuclear power generation.
The DPRK may also remember what the US preemption against Iraq in 2003
has brought about. The US armed forces eventually withdrew from Iraq for
its own loss without finding any justification for conducting this war. But
they have left with no apology and compensation, let alone to bring justice tothose who launched this warfare. The current ISIL phenomenon in Iraq/Syria
is exactly an outcome of the US weakening of the local government withoutsound reasons. With all these considerations, the DPRK is highly unlikely toabandon its nuclear weapons program at this time to trade for the US intent ofno-hostility.
Next, even if the US is ready to accept a nuclear freeze and gradual nuclear
reduction of the DPRK, it is far from enough to trade the DPRK’s nuclear
capacity merely for the US benign intent. For any other nuclear weapons
states, de jure or de facto, such as China, Israel, India and Pakistan, the US has
set up normal relations with them. It is not difficult to infer that the DPRK
will further push its nuclear envelope to qualify for a full political recognition.
Therefore, to prevent the DPRK nuclear program from proceeding further, theUS shall not defer its improvement of relations with the DPRK till later. By
offering more than no-hostility intent, America ought to present more
incentives such as normalization of official relations, not as a reward to theDPRK for its still retaining some nuclear program, but for its willingness tofreeze and reduce gradually its nuclear weapons capability.
5Given these additional terms, the chance that the DPRK may return to the Six
Party Talks, with a more genuine commitment to a scheme of verifiable freeze
and incremental dismantlement of its nuclear weapons programs may
significantly increase. This will facilitate the process of Northeast Asia
Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, to make it more realistically attained.
To be sure, a NEA NWFZ without China, Russia and the US to abandon theirrespective nuclear arms is not a true nuclear weapons free zone covering theentire region. Similarly, a DPRK without fully denuclearizing itself will makethe substance of a NEA NWFZ even more distant. However, by achieving atruly meaningful reconciliation of relations between the DPRK and the US, thisseems to be the most realistic scenario of an incremental process toward aNortheast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.

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