William J. Holstein

NORTH KOREA--Beware of Unintended Consequences
JULY 24 (Continuing a series of commentaries and travel notes from an Asian journey.)

The Obama Administration seems to be pursuing the same policy toward North Korea that the previous Bush Administration did. One strand of this strategy is the hope that American military and economic pressure can topple the regime of the elusive Kim Jong-Il.

But what if that happened? Let's play out the most likely scenarios. If the Kim government were to be crippled or if the North were to be consumed by an internal struggle that had massive economic and human impact, the South Koreans probably would not be able to surge in. For starters, their access is physcially blocked by the DMZ with the exception of a handful of narrow crossings. Materiel could be moved by sea but that might be limited by the size and sophistication of North Korean ports.

It would be much likelier that the Chinese would move in. They already are providing critical economic support to the North and they share a land border (across a river) with the North. They could mobilize far greater resources and the Chinese also have much more cash than the South Korean government does. It might be subtle and it might be shielded from international view, but the Chinese in effect could move in and take an influential position in the North. In the case of a complete collapse, they could even secure outright control of the North.


The Chinese have every incentive to do that. The idea that the U.S.-backed government in Seoul could consolidate control of the North and presumably take control of its nuclear weapons is anathema to the Chinese. For historical reasons, they fear that and simply won't let it happen. They also fear a flood of North Korean refugees pouring across their border. The presence of many ethnic Koreans in northeastern China is already a very sensitive ethnic, economic and political issue.

Imagine how serious it would be if the Chinese moved in to North Korea. The South Koreans would be livid and the U.S. would once again be in a position of trying to check Chinese advances on the Korean peninsula, which shaped the bloody Korean War. The Japanese also would be infuriated. In the period after the Meiji Restoration when they were emerging from isolation, they regarded control of Korea as essential to defending themselves against Chinese and Russian invasions and military pressure. They seized control of Korea in 1910 and held it until the end of the war in 1945.

So it's probably right for Obama to seek to check North Korea's exports of weapons, particularly nuclear ones, but it should not press the case against Pyongyang so hard that it forces a collapse. The unintended consequences of a political meltdown in North Korea would be huge--and unwelcome.