hub or backwater? north korea between alternative conceptions of northeast asian regional economic...

Hub or Backwater?N o rth Ko rea Between Al t e r n a t i ve Conceptions

of Northeast Asian Regional Economic Coopera t i on1

Balázs Szalontai 2

1 The research project on which this article is based was supported by a Chinese Post-Doctoral Research Grant and the Kwngwoon University Industry–AcademicCollaboration Foundation. In the process of writing this article, the author also accumulat-ed a number of debts to his colleagues, including Bradley Martin, Richard Mason, ChenBo, Liang Zhi, and Shen Zhihua, for their kind support.2 Balázs Szalontai is an assistant professor at Kwangwoon University in Seoul as well asassociate fellow and visiting scholar of the Institute of Occidental Studies, NationalUniversity of Malaysia. After receiving a Ph.D. in Soviet and Korean history, he has donearchival research on North Korea, Southeast Asia, Mongolia, India, and the USSR. Hispublications include Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era: Soviet-DPRK Relations and theRoots of North Korean Despotism, 1953-1964 (Stanford University Press and WoodrowWilson Center Press, 2005) as well as articles and book chapters on North Korean andSoutheast Asian history. His current research projects are focused on North Korea’sinvolvement in the Vietnam War, DPRK–Middle East relations, and nuclear proliferation.

This article seeks to investigate how the various recent conceptions ofNortheast Asian regional cooperation have been perceived by the North Koreanleadership, how compatible they are with Pyongyang’s non-economic objectives,and how they might influence North Korean actions toward South Korea.Placing the present situation into a historical context, it argues that for the NorthKorean leaders, regional economic cooperation is less an end in itself than anissue seen through the prism of security policy. That is, such forms of NortheastAsian cooperation that bypass the DPRK or potentially reduce its room formaneuver are likely to elicit unfavorable reactions from Pyongyang. In contrast,the leadership is prone to welcome those conceptions of regional cooperationwhich imply not only the inclusion of the DPRK but also the full or partial exclu -sion of its current opponents.

K e y w o rd s : N o rth Korea, Northeast Asia, regional economic cooperation,i n t e r- K o rean re l a t i o n s

Since the end of the Cold Wa r, multilateral economic cooperationbetween the Northeast Asian countries (China, Japan, the two Kore a s ,Mongolia, and Russia) has made impressive pro g ress, both in the sphereof trade and investment and in the creation of an institutional frameworkfor regional integration. At the same time, tendencies of divergence alsoa p p e a red, not least because the economic goals of the participating statesw e re strongly influenced by power politics. As a consequence, theN o rtheast Asian governments, despite their common commitment to thegeneral idea of regional cooperation, were often in disagreement whenthey attempted to define which specific form of regional integrationwould be the most advantageous. To mention but one example, theChinese leadership, wary as it was about Japan’s intentions, initiallyopposed To k y o ’s proposal to enlarge the East Asian Summit (EAS) toinclude such non-Asian democracies as Australia and New Zealand(Zhao, 2011, pp. 59–60).

As did the other Northeast Asian states, North Korea wanted to par-ticipate in the process of regional economic cooperation but drew a dis-tinction between those forms of regional integration that appeared to becompatible with their specific interests and those that were not.Figuratively speaking, North Korea faced two alternatives: On the onehand, its leaders aspired to transform their country into a transport a t i o nhub linking China and Russia with South Korea and the East Sea; on theother hand, they feared the possibility that the DPRK might become aneconomic backwater, excluded from and left behind by the rapid pro g re s sof regional integration.

This article seeks to investigate how the various recent conceptions ofN o rtheast Asian regional cooperation have been perceived by the Nort h

N o rth Kore a ’s Reactions to the Sino–Japanese Peace Tre a t yThe Tumen River Area Development Pro g r a m

DPRK–ROK–Russian Tr i l a t e r a l i s mSino–Japanese–South Korean Tr i l a t e r a l i s mS i n o – R u s s i a n – N o rth Korean Tr i l a t e r a l i s m

C o n c l u s i o n

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Hub or Backwater? 85

K o rean leadership, how compatible they have been with Pyongyang’snoneconomic objectives, and how they might influence North Kore a nactions toward South Korea. Placing the present situation into a historicalcontext, it argues that for the North Korean leaders, regional economiccooperation is not an end in itself but an issue to be address in the contextof its security policy.

North Korea’s Reactions to the Sino–Japanese Peace Treaty

To assess the impact that one or another form of Northeast Asianregional cooperation might make on the course of North Korean fore i g np o l i c y, it is worth recalling how the DPRK reacted to the conclusion of theSino–Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship (August 12, 1978) and itssubsequent ratification (October 18, 1978). Fully aware of the signifi-cance of Sino–Japanese reconciliation, the leaders of the Korean Wo r k e r s ’P a rty (KWP) at first made substantial eff o rts to take advantage of thep rocess, but as soon as they realized that the expected benefits would notmaterialize, they abruptly switched to an increasingly critical attitude.

F rom Pyongyang’s perspective, the normalization of Sino-Japaneserelations seems not to have been either inherently advantageous or disad-vantageous. Instead, it had both positive and negative potential. Notably,in 1972 the North Korean leaders, in a sharp contrast with those of theUSSR, welcomed the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japanand the PRC, not least because this event greatly facilitated the growth ofJapan–DPRK trade, gave Pyongyang unprecedented access to Japaneset e c h n o l o g y, and hence created considerable friction in Japan–South Kore arelations (Cha, 1999, pp. 115–122). Under such circumstances, the KWPleadership had good reason to re g a rd Sino–Japanese rapprochement as adoubly advantageous process that enhanced their position vis-à-vis SouthK o re a .

In 1978, however, the situation was far more ambivalent. In the sum-mer and early fall of the year—that is, during the final Sino–Japanese talksthat resulted in the conclusion of the peace tre a t y — N o rth Korean pro p a-ganda paid far more attention to the PRC than to the USSR, and even


republished certain anti-Soviet materials from the Chinese press. On theoccasion of CCP Chairman Hua Guofeng’s visit in the DPRK (May 5–10),both sides lashed out at South Korea but carefully refrained from makingany comment critical of Japan.3 In early September, Kim Il Sung made apublic speech in which he sharply criticized the practice of “domination-ism” (c h i b a e j u u i), a word conspicuously similar to the term “hegemonism”that China sought successfully to insert into the Sino-Japanese tre a t y. Sincethe Soviet leadership re g a rded the conclusion of the tre a t y, and specificallyJ a p a n ’s acceptance of the “anti-hegemony clause,” as a step inimical to itsi n t e rests, North Kore a ’s initial standpoint indirectly supported China’se ff o rts to reach an agreement with Tokyo at Moscow’s expense.

To be sure, the KWP cadres had certain misgivings about the Sino–Japanese talks, and thus in August and September they usually gave eva-sive replies if Soviet bloc diplomats inquired about this issue. Still, some ofthem expressed the view that “our good friend, China, will surely use thet reaty to the advantage of Kore a . ”4 As the vice-chairman of the Nort hK o rean Association of Journalists would later put it, Pyongyang wel-comed the tre a t y, because it increased Japan’s dependency on import sf rom China, and thus enabled Beijing to exert influence on Tokyo onbehalf of North Kore a .5 Thus the pro-Chinese policies Pyongyang pur-sued in this period seem to have been motivated by the expectation thatChina would re c i p rocate these gestures by re p resenting the DPRK’s inter-ests during its negotiations with Japan.

In the last three months of 1978, Pyongyang’s attitude underwent ana b rupt change. In the second half of October, Sino-DPRK relations took at u rn for the worse. Simultaneously, the North Korean authorities, havingc o l d - s h o u l d e red the Soviets in the previous months, suddenly displayed

3 Hungarian Embassy to the DPRK [henceforth HE-DPRK], 15 May 1978, HungarianNational Archives (MOL), XIX-J-1-j (Top Secret Documents) China [henceforth CTS],1978, 77. doboz, 78-1, 002378/5/1978; Hungarian Foreign Ministry, 23 May 1978, CTS,1978, 77. doboz, 78-1, 002378/7/1978.4 Hungarian Embassy to the PRC [henceforth HE-PRC], August, 23 1978, CTS, 1978, 77.doboz, 78-1, 002646/3/1978; HE-DPRK, 8 September 1978, CTS, 1978, 77. doboz, 78-1,0 0 2 6 4 6 / 9 / 1 9 7 8 .5 HE-DPRK, October 17, 1978, CTS, 1978, 77. doboz, 78-1, 002646/21/1978.


g reat interest in broadening their cultural and economic relations with theUSSR. The press started to publish more articles about the Soviet Unionthan about China, and the KWP leaders ceased using the term “domina-tionism” in their public speeches. Significantly, the first signs of this v o l t e -f a c e a p p e a red right after the ratification of the Sino-Japanese tre a t y, indi-cating North Kore a ’s dissatisfaction with the fact that the treaty failed tobring about a favorable change in Japanese policies toward Pyongyang.The KWP cadres lamented that China simply did not attribute as muchi m p o rtance to the DPRK as to adopt a critical stance vis-à-vis Japan forthe sake of Kore a .6 In mid-October, Deputy Defense Minister Pak ChungGuk complained to the Czechoslovak ambassador as follows:

The peace treaty is bad and harmful to the DPRK. Japan–DPRK relations willdeteriorate. Now Japan already completely ignores the DPRK, because it has set-tled everything with China. Japan will criticize and attack the DPRK more boldlythan before, for it knows that China will not take a stand against Japan, whereasSouth Korea will receive more attention and support from Japan. Japan will nolonger be afraid of China, [since] China will no longer criticize Japan for itsattacks against the DPRK and for its support to South Korea.7

A c t u a l l y, the CCP leadership seems to have tried to maintain a cert a i nbalance between its North Korean allies and its new Japanese part n e r s ,but since the latter were as unresponsive to Beijing’s suggestions abouthow to solve the problems of the Korean Peninsula as the Chinese leadersw e re to To k y o ’s proposals, the net result was a stalemate.8 This is pro b a-bly why the North Korea media studiously ignored the conclusion of thet reaty as well as Deng Xiaoping’s trip to Tokyo in October 1978 andJapanese Premier Masayoshi Ohira’s visit in China in December 1979.9

6 HE-DPRK, October 31, 1978, XIX-J-1-j (Top Secret Documents) Korea [henceforthKTS], 1978, 80. doboz, 81-1, 002084/3/1978; HE-DPRK, October 31, 1978, KTS, 1978,80. doboz, 81-1, 002084/4/1978; HE-DPRK, December 14, 1978, CTS, 1978, 78. doboz,78-1, 005753/4/1978.7 HE-DPRK, October 17, 1978, CTS, 1978, 77. doboz, 78-1, 002646/21/1978.8 HE-PRC, December 19, 1979, SKTS, 1979, 81. doboz, 82-3, 005512/18/1979.9 HE-DPRK, December13, 1979, CTS, 1979, 77. doboz, 78-1, 003385/8/1979.


N o rth Kore a ’s diff e rent reactions to the establishment of Sino–Japanese diplomatic relations and the conclusion of the Sino–Japaneset reaty suggest that such forms of Northeast Asian regional cooperationthat bypass the DPRK in one way or another, even if they are not specifi-cally directed against Pyongyang, are likely to elicit negative re a c t i o n sf rom the North Korean leaders. In contrast, Pyongyang is prone to wel-come those conceptions of regional cooperation which imply not only theinclusion of the DPRK but also the full or partial exclusion of its curre n topponents (South Korea and/or Japan).

To investigate whether this hypothesis is applicable to the present con-ditions, this article analyzes various alternative conceptions of Nort h e a s tAsian regional economic cooperation from the perspective of Pyongyang’seconomic and noneconomic objectives. Due to space limitations, onlyfour major alternatives can be covered here :

(1) the Tumen River Area Development Program (TRADP; curre n t l yknown as the Greater Tumen Initiative, GTI);

(2) DPRK–ROK–Russian trilateralism, with special respect to theplanned construction of a Tr a n s - K o rean Railway (TKR) and at r a n s - K o rean gas pipeline;

(3) Sino–Japanese–South Korean trilateralism, with the prospect of aC h i n a – J a p a n – K o rea Free Trade Agreement; and

(4) S i n o – R u s s i a n – N o rth Korean trilateralism, with particular re s p e c tto the Khasan–Rajin railway line and China’s Chang–Ji–Tu Plan.

The Tumen River Area Development Program

During the Cold Wa r, attempts to stimulate economic cooperationamong the Northeast Asian countries were limited both in scope andduration. The largest regional scheme, composed as it was of the USSR,China, North Korea, and Mongolia, disintegrated in the early 1960s dueto the Sino–Soviet split; the parallel growth of Sino–Japanese andJapan–ROK trade did not converge yet into trilateral cooperation; thegradual development of Japan–DPRK economic cooperation could noto v e rcome the political barriers between Tokyo and Pyongyang; and dire c t


trade between South Korea and the Communist states made little or noheadway until the late 1980s.

In the early 1990s, however, the normalization of Sino–Soviet, Sino–ROK, and Russian–ROK relations, combined as it was with a part i a li n t e r- K o rean rapprochement, created unprecentedly favorable conditionsfor multilateral economic cooperation in Northeast Asia. Under the aegisof the United Nations Development Program in 1992, the governments ofChina, Russia, Mongolia, and the two Koreas launched the Tumen RiverA rea Development Program. The pro g r a m ’s core area, located at the pointof convergence of the Chinese, North Korean, and Russian borders andknown as the Tumen River Economic Zone (TREZ), was a triangle com-posed of Rajin (DPRK), Hunchun (China), and Posyet (Russia). Havingset up such institutions as the Tumen Secretariat, the Coord i n a t i o nCommittee and the Consultation Commission (1995), the part i c i p a t i n gg o v e rnments extended in 2005 the geographical scope of the pro g r a m —which they renamed from TRADP to the Greater Tumen Initiative—toC h i n a ’s entire nort h e a s t e rn region, Inner Mongolia, Chongjin, Russia’sMaritime Province, and South Kore a ’s eastern seacoast (Bae &F e d o ro v s k y, 2010, pp. 176–181; Blanchard, 2000, pp. 274–278; Chung,Lee, & Yoo, 2011, pp. 4–9).

In the first decade of the program, the North Korean leaders, havingestablished a Special Economic Zone in the Rajin–Sonbong (Rason) are aas early as 1991, expressed considerable willingness to participate inTRADP (Chung, Lee, & Yoo, 2011, p. 8; Hughes, 2000, pp. 21–22). In1998, the state-run Korean Central News Agency made the followingenthusiastic statements about the pro g r a m ’s aims and pro s p e c t s :

The [Rajin–Sonbong] zone is connected with all countries and regions ofnortheast Asia by sea and land... The DPRK government is putting efforts intobuilding the zone into an international transit transport base so that it can effec-tively help toward the development of economic cooperation and exchangeamong northeast Asian nations. At present, projects to modernize Rajin port andlift container tranport between Rajin and China and railway freight transportbetween Rajin and Russia onto a new higher stage are progressing apace...TheDPRK government will actively strive to open new sea routes linking Rajin with


cities on the west coast of Japan, including Niigata, as cooperation and exchangeare being expanded and developed among northeast Asian nations.1 0

Still, TRADP turned out to be considerably less successful than expect-ed. Various factors, including Sino–Japanese competition and the opposi-tion of local Russian authorities to the increase of Chinese influence in theMaritime Province, greatly hindered regional economic cooperation.During the 1990s, TREZ failed to evolve into a dynamic growth triangle,not least because the economies of northeast China, North Korea, and theRussian Far East, rich as they were in natural re s o u rces but short of for-eign direct investment, were not necessarily mutually complementary. Onthe contrary, they often competed with each other for South Korean andJapanese investments, and in this rivalry, the DPRK, due to its slow andmismanaged economic re f o rms, lacked a competitive edge (Abrahamian,2012; Blanchard, 2000; Hughes, 2000; Kim, 1992; W. J. Kim, 2008;M e y e r, 1999). The rapid inflow of South Korean investments, directed asit was toward Hunchun and other cities of the Yanbian Kore a nAutonomous Pre f e c t u re, largely bypassed Rajin and the adjacent Nort hK o rean areas. Unable to attract sufficient quantities of foreign investmentfor the much-desired purpose of industrial development, theRajin–Sonbong zone could benefit from the growth of regional coopera-tion mostly in the form of tranportation services. Due to the transit ro l ethat Rajin could (and did) play between Hunchun and the South Kore a np o rt of Busan, the DPRK had good reason to oppose those Chinese plansthat called for free navigation on the Tumen River and the construction ofan internal sea port at Hunchun (Cotton, 1996, p. 1101; Freeman &Thompson, 2011, pp. 29–31; Kim, 1992, p. 39; Wright, 2000, pp.13–16). Similarly, Rajin faced potential competition from Zarubino andother Russian ports, which both China and Japan wanted to use for trans-shipment (Meyer, 1999, p. 218).

In the light of Pyongyang’s initial interest in TRADP, it might appearparadoxical that on November 5, 2009—by which time the pro g r a mfinally started to show a stronger growth potential—North Kore a

1 0 KCNA, July 9, 1998.


announced its withdrawal from the organization (Yacheistova, 2010, p.4). Apart from the international disputes caused by the DPRK’s secondnuclear test, this step was probably influenced by the fact that short l yb e f o re, in October 2009, China informed Pyongyang of its decision tolaunch the so-called Chang–Ji–Tu Plan (which is described in the last sec-tion of this article) in close cooperation with North Korea. After all,N o rth Kore a ’s initial involvement in TRADP seems to have been motivat-ed partly by the desire to avoid isolation and partly by the calculation thatTRADP provided a useful channel for the DPRK to manage its re l a t i o n swith China (the main driving force behind TRADP) and South Kore a(with which Pyongyang could interact under the umbrella of TRADP evenif their bilateral relations were temporarily strained). Due to the near-simultaneous creation of free economic zones in Nakhodka, Rajin andHunchun in 1990–92, North Korean non-participation in TRADP wouldhave further weakened Pyongyang’s chances vis-à-vis its competitors( B l a n c h a rd, 2000, pp. 278–287; Hughes, 2000, pp. 18–19).

By 2009, however, the situation had undergone a profound change.Once the Chinese government made a definite commitment to the DPRK,the risk of being bypassed was no longer as serious as before. At the sametime, the post-2008 deterioration of inter- K o rean relations reduced the like-lihood of North-South cooperation within GTI, while Japan, an observer inGTI, had suspended its trade relations with Pyongyang as early as 2006.Under such circumstances, the North Korean leaders probably concludedthat the possible benefits of their continued participation in GTI would notsignificantly exceed the benefits of trilateral Sino–Russian–DPRK coopera-tion, whereas the constraints of multilateral cooperation would not be com-patible with their confrontational position vis-à-vis Seoul.

DPRK–ROK–Russian Trilateralism

Following the disintegration of the USSR, in the 1990s the Russiang o v e rnment focused its eff o rts on broadening its economic relations withSouth Korea while simultaneously reducing its cooperation with theDPRK (Joo, 2003, p. 147). Since this policy shift partly coincided with a


period of renewed inter- K o rean friction, Russian–DPRK relations under-went a serious deterioration.1 1 Under such circumstances, the likelihoodof trilateral DPRK–ROK–Russian cooperation seemed slight at best,though the idea of building a gas pipeline from Yakutia to South Kore avia North Korean terr i t o ry was discussed by Moscow and Seoul as earlyas 1994–95 (Ahn & Jones, 2008, pp. 114–115).

In 2000–02, however, the new Russian administration of VladimirPutin, determined as it was to re s t o re Russia’s international status as ag reat power, achieved a reconciliation in Russian-DPRK relations. The dra-matic inter- K o rean rapprochement that occurred in this period created afavorable environment for trilateral DPRK–ROK–Russian cooperation,not least because in April 2002, the leaders of the two Koreas expre s s e dtheir commitment to reconnecting the nort h e rn and southern railway net-works. Furt h e rm o re, certain unresolved issues of Sino–Russian economiccooperation—including disputes over a planned gas pipeline to the ROKvia Chinese terr i t o ry—made Moscow increasingly interested in using theDPRK, rather than China, as a transit country to South Korea (Ahn &Jones, 2008, pp. 117–122; Joo, 2003, pp. 148–150; Paik, 2005, pp. 9–12).

One form of trilateral economic cooperation that the Russian govern-ment proposed in 2000–02 was a plan to link the Trans-Siberian Railway(TSR) to the would-be Tr a n s - K o rean Railway (and thus ultimately to thetransshipment hub of Busan), with the aim of facilitating transport notonly between Russia and South Korea but also between Europe and theFar East in general (Hisako, 2004; Yoon & Lee, 2005, pp. 189–196).Another Russian proposal was the construction of a gas pipeline to theROK via North Korea, either from Yakutia or from Sakhalin. Since SouthK o rean imports of liquefied natural gas from non-Russian sources seemedi n s u fficient to meet the country ’s projected demand, and a trans-Chinesepipeline would have to cope with the difficulties of supplying both Chinaand the ROK, this conception of trilateral economic cooperationa p p e a red attractive to Seoul as well (Ball, et al., 2003, pp. 22–23, 69–70).

Pyongyang also showed considerable interest in these forms of re g i o n a l

1 1 On North Korean criticism of Russia’s South Korea policy, see KCNA, January 14,1998; and KCNA, January 19, 1998.


economic cooperation during its negotiations with Moscow and Seoul(Joo, 2003, p. 151). In October 2002, the nort h e rn Ministry of Railwayshailed the planned TSR-TKR project as follows: “This railway project isan important work as it is greatly helpful to drastically expanding eco-nomic links and cooperation not only between the Korean and Russianpeoples but also between countries in Northeast Asia and Europe and,f u rt h e rm o re, achieving peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific Region.”1 2

C o n c e rning the trans-Korean gas pipeline, the North Korean leaders, anx-ious not to jeopardize the nuclear deals they expected from theU.S.–DPRK Agreed Framework of 1994, adopted a more re s e rved atti-tude. Still, they did demand occasionally a commitment from the Souththat the pipeline would pass through North Korean terr i t o ry, which indi-cated their wariness about the alternative plans aimed at bypassing theDPRK (Paik, 2005, pp. 26–27).

Despite the interest that all three parties concerned expressed in thea f o resaid projects, so far none of these plans has reached the stage ofc o m p rehensive implementation. While the nort h e rn and southern rail-ways were reconnected as early as June 2003, no test run took place untilMay 2007 (when Pyongyang temporarily showed readiness to dismantleits nuclear facilities), after which the process stalled again. This lack ofp ro g ress clearly demonstrated the adverse impact the nuclear crisis madeon DPRK–ROK–Russian cooperation (Lankov, 2010, pp. 98–100). Sinceno major trilateral project could be carried out unless the nuclear pro b l e mwas permanently settled, Pyongyang’s nuclear intransigence turned out tobe a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it deprived the DPRK of thepossible economic benefits of a trilateral cooperation; on the other hand,it gave the North Korean leadership leverage over South Korea andRussia (whose ambitions were also thwarted, and who there f o re had astake in gaining Pyongyang’s cooperation). Since the alternative pro j e c t saimed at bypassing the DPRK—e.g., the construction of a underseapipeline and a ROK-managed port facility near Vladivostok—were poten-tially feasible but not yet in operation, so far the net result has been larg e-ly a stalemate (Bauer, 2009, pp. 56–58).

1 2 KCNA, October 18, 2002.


The interrelatedness of the nuclear crisis and trilateral cooperation alsomanifested itself in the so-called “gas for peace” plan that proposed to ful-fill Pyongyang’s energy needs by building a pipeline from Russia thro u g hthe DPRK on condition that the North Korean nuclear weapons pro g r a mbe verifiably dismantled for good (Ajemian, 2007). And even if the twoissues were not formally linked, the North Korean leaders must have beens t rongly aware that they could not expect a decisive bre a k t h rough in thea f o resaid trilateral projects unless they adopted a cooperative stance onthe nuclear question for a prolonged period. In other words, the interd e-pendence created by North Kore a ’s participation in the project would givePyongyang leverage over its partners, but at the same time it would alsoimpose long-term constraints on its behavior. The leadership’s re l u c t a n c eto accept such constraints probably played a major role in that despite thep rospective economic benefits of DPRK–ROK–Russian cooperation,Pyongyang seems to have pursued this option less energetically than thea l t e rnative path of Sino–Russian–North Korean trilateralism (which, asdescribed in another section, has already entered the stage of practicali m p l e m e n t a t i o n ) .1 3 But even if North Kore a ’s interest was genuine,DPRK–ROK–Russian cooperation would remain highly vulnerable to anysudden and unforeseen crisis that might occur in inter- K o rean re l a t i o n s .

Sino-Japanese-South Korean Trilateralism

If the KWP leaders re g a rded the Sino–Japanese treaty as inimical totheir interests, this was doubly true for their attitude toward theJapan–ROK Treaty on Basic Relations (1965) and the gradual establish-ment of official contacts between China and South Korea in 1989–92. Inthe light of their disapproval of these bilateral agreements, they must havep e rceived the recent emergence of a trilateral Sino–Japanese–ROK part-nership, particularly if it occurred in a period of hostile inter- K o rean re l a-

1 3 For instance, in May 2006 the DPRK cancelled a planned trial train operation on thereconnected railway due to disagreements over such unrelated issues as the nuclear crisisand the maritime boundary between the two Koreas. KCNA, May 26, 2006.


tions, as a similarly unfavorable development.For a substantial time, Sino–Japanese–South Korean trilateral coopera-

tion, overshadowed as it was by overlapping but broader visions ofregional integration (e.g., ASEAN Plus Three) and weakened bySino–Japanese rivalry and Japanese–ROK disputes, pro g ressed moreslowly than the conclusion of FTAs between the aforesaid three states andASEAN. Since 2008, however, trilateral summits have been held on anannual basis. On the basis of a Trilateral Joint Research Project conductedin 2003–09, the three countries set up in 2010 a Joint Study Committeefor a China–Japan–Korea FTA. In September 2011, the Tr i l a t e r a lCooperation Secretariat was established in Seoul, and in May 2012, thet h ree governments signed an Agreement for the Promotion, Facilitationand Protection of Investment (for a brief overv i e w, see Byun, 2011, pp.1–2; and Dent, 2009). At a sub-national level, the center of trilateral eco-nomic integration has been the region known as the Yellow Sea RimEconomic Zone that encompasses the coastal provinces of Nort h e rnChina, the western coast of South Korea (with Incheon as a transporthub), and Kyushu in Japan (W. B. Kim, 2008, pp. 516–517).

In geographical terms, this form of economic integration could havep rovided substantial opportunities for North Korean participation. Asearly as the 1990s, a pronounced shift occurred in North Korean mar-itime traffic from the east coast ports to Nampo, the DPRK’s main gate-way to the Yellow Sea (Ducruet, Roussin, & Jo, 2009, pp. 362–365).Post-2003 South Korean and Chinese investments in the North Kore a nmanufacturing sector were concentrated in such western areas as theKaesong Industrial Complex and the Nampo–Pyongyang corr i d o r(Roussin and Ducruet, 2007, pp. 13–15). North Korean interest in cre a t-ing linkages between inter- K o rean and Sino–DPRK economic cooperationalso manifested itself in Pyongyang’s decisions to reconnect theShinuiju–Seoul railway and establish the Shinuiju Special AdministrativeRegion (Ahn, 2002, pp. 107–114).

In fact, South Korea was also strongly in favor of reconnecting theSeoul-Shinuiju line, and thus making it the Busan–northeast China link inthe would-be Great Silk Road (Bae & Fedoro v s k i y, 2010, p. 156).N e v e rtheless, the dynamic growth of trans-Yellow Sea maritime and air


c a rgo traffic among China, South Korea, and Japan (Lee & Rodrigue,2006, pp. 604–616) implied that for these three countries, North Kore a ’slogistical involvement was not a sine qua non of regional integration.That is, in this trilateral stru c t u re the absence of trans-Korean land traff i cdid not hinder the pro g ress of regional economic cooperation to the sameextent that it would have in DPRK–ROK–Russian trilateralism. In otherw o rds, Pyongyang could participate in this integration process only if itsrelations with both Seoul and Beijing were cordial; and if they were not,the other powers could easily bypass it. And bypass they did, for duringthe post-2008 trilateral talks, the DPRK has been only an object of, butnot a participant in, the negotiations. As See-Won Byun put it, “SinceChina–South Korea–Japan cooperation is primarily functional and doesnot place North Korea at the center of its agenda, this form of coopera-tion may continue despite the stalemate surrounding North Kore a . ”(Byun, 2011, p. 2). The fact that inter- K o rean relations underwent a pro-g ressive deterioration in the very same period that Seoul gradually institu-tionalized its ties with China and Japan must have aggravatedP y o n g y a n g ’s fears of isolation.

Due to the existence of a well-functioning alternative logistics network,the disruptive effect that inter- K o rean and/or Sino–DPRK tension could(and did) produce on the chances of North Korean participation did notgive Pyongyang any leverage over the integration process; rather, it weak-ened its bargaining position. North Kore a ’s awareness of that risk founde x p ression in those KCNA statements made in October–November 2002(i.e., during the second nuclear crisis) which accused the United States andSouth Kore a ’s Grand National Party of hampering the reconnection of theSeoul–Shinuiju railway.1 4 S i m i l a r l y, China’s disapproval of the creation ofa Shinuiju special autonomous region forced the DPRK to shelve the pro-ject (W. J. Kim, 2008, p. 225).

Bypassed by the process of Sino–Japanese–ROK cooperation and lack-ing leverage over it, the North Korean leadership seems to have welcomedany development that could potentially disrupt it. Notably, KCNA hasbeen prone to publish material on problems that created tension in

1 4 KCNA, October 30, 2002; KCNA, November 16, 2002.


Sino–Japanese and Japanese–South Korean relations, including terr i t o r i a ldisputes (particularly the issue of Dokdo) and Japanese military pre p a r a-tions. Statements of this kind were regularly made at the time of the suc-cessive trilateral summits, too. Among other comments, KCNA re p e a t e d l yemphasized that Japan’s ambitions posed a threat not only to the DPRKbut also to China: “The U.S.–Japan joint use of the [Tinian] base in theAsia-Pacific region is aimed to contain China. There f o re there is a call forC h i n a ’s vigilance.”1 5 KCNA also paid considerable attention to Sino–Japanese disputes over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, drawing the conclu-sion that “The ulterior aim sought by Japan in noisily peddling the nonex-istent issues of territories of its neighboring countries is to expand its terr i-t o ry by grabbing territories of other countries.”1 6

Under such circumstances, the further pro g ress of trilateral Sino–Japanese–ROK cooperation is likely to increase the threat perceptions ofthe North Korean leaders, and thus it might induce them to continue pur-suing a confrontational policy toward South Korea. From this perspective,the friction that the U.S.–South Korean responses to the C h e o n a n a n dYeonpyeong crises caused in Sino–ROK relations (Thompson, 2010, pp.1–4) was probably seen as advantageous to Pyongyang’s intere s t s .

Sino–Russian–North Korean Trilateralism

In the last phase of the Cold Wa r, the KWP leaders harbored ambiva-lent feelings about the process of Sino–Soviet reconciliation. While theywelcomed this step, they also feared that the two powers might re a c ha g reements not only with each other but also with South Korea, whichwould result in North Kore a ’s diplomatic marg i n a l i z a t i o n .1 7 That is, aSino–Soviet rapprochement would serve their interests only if at least oneof the two powers (and preferably both) remained committed to pro v i d es u p p o rt to the DPRK against the United States and/or the ROK.

1 5 KCNA, May 10, 2012.1 6 KCNA, November 24, 2010.1 7 HE-DPRK, May 23, 1989, CTS, 1989, 49. doboz, 78-13, 002625/1989.


Instead of achieving the aforesaid aim, in the early 1990s North Kore afaced a worst-case scenario, as both the USSR and China, having accom-plished reconciliation, established diplomatic relations with South Kore a .In the following decades, both China and Russia laid strong emphasis ondeveloping economic cooperation with Seoul, which effectively pre c l u d e dthe possibility of Sino–Russian–DPRK trilateral cooperation against theR O K .

In 2008–09, however, certain changes started to appear in Russian–DPRK and Sino-DPRK relations that gradually re i n f o rced Pyongyang’sb a rgaining position vis-à-vis Seoul. Overriding alternative logistics plansthat were focused on the ports of Posyet and Zarubino, Russia signed ana g reement with Pyongyang in April 2008 on the re c o n s t ruction of therailway line between North Kore a ’s Rajin Port and Russia’s Khasan sta-tion, and the building of a container terminal in Rajin (Bae &F e d o ro v s k i y, 2010, p. 167, pp. 190–191). By October 2011, re c o n s t ru c-tion reached such a stage that a trial train was launched. These develop-ments evidently pleased and emboldened the North Korean leaders. Atthe ceremony of the trial train service, Deputy Minister of Railways Ju JaeDok declared, “The Rajin–Khasan freight transport will make contribu-tions to the economic exchange not only between the DPRK and Russiabut also [between] Northeast Asia and Euro p e . ”1 8 In 2010–11, KCNAf requently emphasized the strength of Russian–DPRK friendship (which,it hinted, South Korea, Japan, and the United States sought to disru p t ) ,and took Moscow’s side in the re c u rrent Russian–Japanese disputes overthe Kuril Islands.1 9

To be sure, Russia’s 2008 decision to start the Khasan–Rajin pro j e c twas hard l y, if at all, motivated by a desire to create some sort of trilateralS i n o – R u s s i a n – N o rth Korean cooperation against South Korea. On thec o n t r a ry, it re p resented an attempt to implement DPRK–ROK–Russiantrilateralism, for it was made in a period when Pyongyang showed re a d i-ness to make the long-demanded nuclear concessions, and thus thechances of inter- K o rean cooperation appeared favorable. Still, the subse-

1 8 KCNA, October 13, 2011.1 9 KCNA, November 24 2010; KCNA, March 1 2011; KCNA, October 12, 2011.


quent breakdown of North–South relations did not put an end to the pro-ject, not least because Moscow opposed the sanctions-oriented policies ofthe Lee Myung-bak administration (Bae & Fedoro v s k i y, 2010, p. 167, pp.108–111). Due to Russia’s interest in taking advantage of the ice-free portof Rajin, this limited project, unlike the grand plan of a Tr a n s - K o re a nR a i l w a y, appeared viable and profitable even if inter- K o rean cooperationfailed to materialize.

The Rajin–Khasan project probably influenced the CCP leadership’sdecision to create a transportation corridor from Northeast China to theEast Sea through North Korea, rather than the Russian Far East. The so-called Chang–Ji–Tu Plan, named after the Changchun–Jilin–Tu m e n j i a n gregion and officially announced by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao duringhis visit in the DPRK in October 2009, envisioned the construction of aChangchun–Hunchun–Rajin highway and the joint development ofRajin Port. Jilin Province obtained rights to use Rajin Port for ten years,and in December 2010, China undertook to invest as much as US$2 bil-lion in the Rason Special Economic Zone (Abrahamian, 2012, pp. 3–4 ;Park, 2011, p. 2).

In essence, the DPRK benefited from the fact that Moscow and Beijinghad failed to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement on the creation of at r a n s p o rtation corridor via Russian terr i t o ry (Bae & Fedoro v s k i y, 2010,p. 190). Still, the Chang–Ji–Tu Plan laid considerable stress on Sino–Russ-ian economic cooperation, and in 2009–12, both countries were in favorof solving the North Korean nuclear problem by means of engagementrather than coercive measures (Weitz, 2012, pp. 90–93). Under such cir-cumstances, the DPRK could take advantage of both Russian and Chinesepolicies of regional cooperation, though the three states did not coord i-nate their actions in the same way as occurred in Sino–Japanese–SouthK o rean trilateralism. The North Korean leaders were clearly aware of theeconomic and political implications of these developments. In July 2011,Rodong Sinmun summarized the bright prospects of regional economiccooperation as follows:

The Rason Economic and Trade Zone is situated in such [a] favorable geo-graphical position that it can link with [the] three provinces in [the] northeast of


China, the Far East[ern] region of Russia, Mongolia and other areas which haveappeared promising economic and trade regions in Northeast Asia... That is whythe Rason area can be a favorable transport hub.2 0

A p a rt from the direct benefits that the DPRK could draw from thea f o resaid projects, this form of regional cooperation was also advanta-geous to Pyongyang in a strategic sense. That is, these projects, confined asthey were to North Korean, Chinese and Russian terr i t o ry, could be suc-cessfully implemented even if the inter- K o rean stalemate continued to per-sist. In other words, the North Korean leadership was no longer compelledto bring about a long-term normalization of inter- K o rean relations if itwanted to avoid exclusion (or rather self-exclusion) from the process ofregional cooperation. On the contrary, now it was South Kore a ’s turn tofeel bypassed. As Kim Young-yun pointed out, “A North Korean pro j e c tunder China’s initiative that excludes the participation of the South wouldbe contrary to the development of inter- K o rean economic integration.”(Kim, 2010, p. 10). Since this situation re i n f o rced Pyongyang’s position atS e o u l ’s expense and provided the North greater room to maneuver in thenuclear sphere than a stru c t u re based on DPRK–ROK–Russian coopera-tion, the North Korean leaders have a strong stake in maintaining it.

Conclusion

The findings of this article seem to confirm the initial hypothesis aboutN o rth Kore a ’s fears of being either bypassed or constrained by the pro c e s sof regional cooperation. They are also in accordance with what Samuel S.Kim called “the greatest irony of the [Northeast Asian] region.” As he putit, “North Korea, the weakest of the six main actors, seems positioned tobe a primary driver of NEA’s regional geopolitics.” (Kim, 2006, p. 167).Indeed, the DPRK has at least partly succeeded in engaging in re g i o n a leconomic cooperation on its own terms, rather than on the terms of itsopponents. Having evaded such forms of multilateral cooperation which

2 0 KCNA, July 20, 2011.


might have imposed constraints on its foreign policy (i.e., the Gre a t e rTumen Initiative and DPRK–ROK–Russian trilateralism), Pyongyangfinally managed to implement a major trilateral scheme that bro u g h tabout considerable economic benefits and a relatively strong Sino-Russiancommitment without directly hindering the North Korean leadership in itsc o n f rontational policy vis-à-vis South Korea. Figuratively speaking, theDPRK proved able to achieve the proverbial feat of having its cake andeating it too.

To be sure, the recent emergence of Sino–Russian–DPRK trilateralismreflected at least as much the concrete interests and veiled rivalries of thetwo major powers as Pyongyang’s diplomatic skills. The limits of Nort hK o re a ’s leverage also became apparent during the ongoing process ofSino–Japanese–South Korean cooperation, which the DPRK seems tohave disapproved but could not seriously disrupt. Paradoxically, the com-plex Chinese strategy of simultaneously engaging both Koreas may haveled to the unintended consequence of aggravating inter- K o rean re l a t i o n sby partly re i n f o rcing and partly weakening Pyongyang’s bargaining posi-tion. On the one hand, China’s growing economic commitment to theDPRK, which implied the potential exclusion of South Korea, must haveemboldened the North Korean leaders, who possibly concluded that therisks and negative economic consequences of a confrontational policyw e re no longer as great as before. On the other hand, the trilateral coop-eration among Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul probably heightenedP y o n g y a n g ’s perceptions of a threat and induced the leadership to adopt ah a rder stance toward the ROK. In this light, it appears likely that thepost-2008 deterioration of inter- K o rean relations was at least part l ycaused by the competing visions of regional cooperation; for this re a s o n ,it might continue unless Northeast Asian regionalism undergoes yetanother major policy shift. Having been unable to reach a consensus oni n t e r- K o rean economic integration, ultimately both the DPRK and theROK opted for such schemes of regional economic cooperation that wereimplicitly based on the exclusion of the other Korea. In this sense, thelessons of the Cold War still appear valid on the Korean Peninsula.


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