[Insight & Opinion] U.S. Strategy to Contain China and North Korea

U.S. President Joe Biden defined China in the ‘National Security Strategy’ announced on the 12th of last month as "the only competitor with the intent to reshape the international order and the combined economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that goal." He also stated that "winning the competition with China and deterring Russia" is the core objective of U.S. security strategy. This signaled an intensification of the U.S.-China strategic rivalry.

Does North Korea hold strategic value for the United States? If the answer is affirmative, the U.S. may attempt a strategic shift toward North Korea. If negative, it would prefer to maintain the status quo. In this regard, it is noteworthy that a new perception of North Korea has emerged among some American experts. Walter Russell Mead, a researcher at the Hudson Institute, published a column titled ‘Detente May Be an Option With North Korea’ in the Wall Street Journal on April 5, 2021. He had already predicted in 2014 that China, Russia, and others would seek to change the existing international order, heralding a new era of geopolitical tension. His prediction has become reality.

He diagnoses that the U.S. policy on North Korean denuclearization over the past 30 years has failed. Meanwhile, North Korea’s heavy dependence on China is also very disadvantageous for North Korea, so he believes that the stronger China becomes, the more North Korea will want to distance itself from China. He points out that the U.S. foreign strategy needs to become more realistic. Since it became known through the Trump-Kim Jong-un summits that North Korea is interested in establishing a new relationship with the U.S., the Biden administration should now consider what benefits the U.S. would gain by causing North Korea to break away from China’s sphere of influence. He argues that if the confrontation between the U.S. and China continues to maintain a balance of power favorable to the U.S. and its allies in East Asia, the U.S. must promptly reconsider the direction of North Korea-U.S. relations.

Additionally, Vincent Brooks, former commander of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, and Im Ho-young, former deputy commander, published an essay titled ‘A Grand Bargain With North Korea’ in Foreign Affairs on July 29, 2021. They point out that the military pressure, economic sanctions, and denuclearization attempts through China’s cooperation that South Korea and the U.S. have taken against North Korea have all been ineffective, thus a new approach is necessary. They propose reducing China’s influence in Northeast Asia as a new strategic goal for South Korea and the U.S., advocating for establishing a new relationship with North Korea to achieve this. They argue that North Korea should be accepted as a member of the order led by South Korea and the U.S., and for this, North Korea’s desired economic revival and security guarantees must be provided. Their position presupposes North Korean denuclearization.

Their views represent a 180-degree turn from the containment strategy the U.S. has pursued toward North Korea until now. They recognize North Korea’s strategic value as a means to check China. Will North Korea respond to this? In 1972, the U.S. abruptly improved relations with China to check the Soviet Union. It was a tremendous geopolitical shock. China views the normalization of hostile relations between North Korea and the U.S. in that context. The Soviet Union then is China now. Preventing this is in China’s interest. North Korea can gain many economic and strategic benefits by normalizing relations with the U.S. China did it, so there is no reason North Korea cannot. Naturally, it is also beneficial for South Korea. In these days when international affairs are increasingly confrontational and uncertain, geopolitical imagination is more necessary than ever.

Kim Dong-gi, author of ‘The Power of Geopolitics’