DPRK Denuclearization And Korea - China Strategic Partnership

Nuclear North Korea is a critical factor which endangers security and peace of the Northeast Asia as well as inter-Korean relations. North Korea carried out four nuclear tests and launched long-range missiles repeatedly in spite of international community’s objection and standing UN sanctions, having improved its nuclear capacity. Pyongyang declared itself a nuclear power in February 2005 and conducted the first nuclear test in October 2006, which made the international community accept North Korea’s nuclear development as fact. In April 2012, North Koreans have enshrined their status as a nuclear power in the constitution. North Korea also claimed that its fourth nuclear test in January 2016 was of a significantly more powerful hydrogen bomb, showing no willingness to abandon its nuclear ambitions both internally and externally.In the meanwhile, the international community implemented the UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on the North in order to resolve the nuclear issue whenever it carried out nuclear tests. On the one hand, Pyongyang had bilateral talks with US and the sixparty talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, but all the efforts to stop the North’s nuclear development were in vain. While UN sanctions and international negotiations with North Korea failed over and over again, the North’s nuclear ambitions and nuclear capacity have grown more than ever before.The nuclear issue of North Korea is in a security dilemma. In this situation, there is no way to solve the issue in the short term with ground-breaking ideas. However, the North Korea problem is an essential challenge that needs to be addressed for security and peace of the Korean Peninsula and the region. In order to solve the North Korea nuclear issue, it is essential to hold full consultation and cooperation with the international community. It is time to work with China having plenty of leverage over North Korea than ever. China objects Pyongyang’s nuclear test and nuclear North, which hurt stability of the Korean Peninsula. And the Chinese are consistently sticking to their principle of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the Peninsula’ peace and stability, and problem solving through negotiation. South Korea and China are sharing a goal of the North’s denuclearization.The relationship between South Korea and China made rapid progress since 1992, when China established diplomatic relations with South Korea, and they have been in a strategic cooperative partnership from 2008. South Korean President Park Geun-hye and China’s Xi Jinping, both newly elected in spring of 2013, proclaimed ’Joint Statement for the Future Vision of South Korea and China’, which is a blueprint for their future relationship, when Park made a state visit to China in June 2013. And in the wake of Xi’s successful visit to South Korea in July 2014, the Korea-China strategic cooperative partnership has gone from strength to strength.Korea and China should constantly develop their strategic cooperative partnership with the aim of accomplishing North Korea’s denuclearization and securing peace and stability in the Northeast Asia. Also, they should completely support Pyongyang’s reform and open, making the regime change to be a normal part of the international community. In the long run, they will need to strengthen their mutual cooperation on setting up a security cooperation system in the Northeast Asia for conflict control and peace settlement of the region.