Why isn’t North Korea threatening China?

Listening to North Korea’s response to the latest round of U.N. sanctions, one might be forgiven for thinking that there is no U.N. Security Council, or China, for that matter.

It was America that did this to us.

In advance of Thursday’s decision by the 15-nation council to impose additional sanctions on Pyongyang, the North Korean leadership threatened to go nuclear; but its target was Washington D.C., not the Security Council’s 1st Ave. home in New York, and certainly not Beijing.

Labeling the Obama administration a "criminal threatening global peace" the Hermit Kingdom vowed preemptive nuclear action if the United States pressed ahead with the sanctions vote. It also announced it would revoke all its non-aggression deals with South Korea, America’s "puppet."

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest," said Pyongyang.

The United States, and the Security Council, brushed off the North Korean threat as another rhetorical blast signifying little. "Let us be clear: We are fully capable of dealing with that threat," White House spokesman Jay Carney, assured reporters, citing Pyongyang’s limited ballistic missile capability.

That asymmetry may be at the heart of why North Korea continues to test its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons in defiance of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The country’s new leader likely feels that the tests help consolidate his hold on power at home. And clearly, he is seeking to rattle his new South Korean counterpart at a time of political transition. Or maybe, as Jennifer Lind, an associate professor at Dartmouth University, suggested in a piece in Foreign Affairs, North Korea is simply conducting nuclear and ballistic missile tests because that what you need to do to improve your arsenal.

Whatever the motivation, North Korea has ample cause to blame the United States for its latest troubles. The United States took the lead in negotiating the past five Security Council sanctions resolutions.

But the most recent spate of sanctions wouldn’t have happened without North Korea’s dearest friend and benefactor, China.

The resolution adopted by the council on Thursday was hammered out in closed door negotiations between Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and her Chinese counterpart, Li Baodong. It was presented to the other council members as a joint U.S.-China resolution. And while Li had initially resisted the American push for sanctions, he finally came around and pledged to ensure that the council’s measures are implemented in full.

That means China — however grudgingly — is on board for a sweeping range of financial, diplomatic, and military sanctions, including a humiliating luxury ban designed to deny Kim Jong Un and his inner circle the ability to buy yachts, racing cars, and fine jewelry.

So why hasn’t Kim’s propaganda brigade laid a glove on Beijing?

Analysts believe that while Beijing is truly irked by Pyongyang’s nuclear bravado, its primary goal is avoiding a collapse of the regime, which could result in the flight of huge numbers of refugees into China, and lay the groundwork for Korea’s unification and the possible deployment of Korean and American forces closer to its border.

"We have been socialized into expecting so little from China that there’s excitement when China shows even a bit of sternness," wrote Victor Cha, Korea chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Ellen Kim, a fellow at the CSIS. But they added: "In the past, China-DPRK trade has increased in the aftermath of U.N. sanctions."

Dartmouth’s Lind told Turtle Bay that Pyongyang "probably understands it is walking a pretty fine line when it comes to China" and does not want to antagonize its neighbor any more than it already has.

On the one hand, she said, Pyongyang’s leadership recognizes that Beijing has an interest in preserving the North Korean regime to serve as a buffer between South Korea and its military protector, the United States. But she added that Beijing’s relationship with Pyongyang threatens to become increasingly estranged as China’s global interests diverge.

"China has growing interests and it wants to be a leading power. North Korea is like one of those friends you had in high school that you are a little embarrassed of when you get older," said Lind.

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