KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Amid today’s renewed great power competition, the Korean Peninsula has entered a new Cold War winter without having enjoyed the spring of the previous post-Cold War era. During the post-Cold War period, the South Korean and U.S. governments anticipated that the seismic changes occurring in Europe would be replicated on the Korean Peninsula. However, over the past 30 years, none of their main policy goals regarding North Korea — such as reform and opening, denuclearization, peace settlement and unification — were fulfilled due to several factors in Northeast Asian geopolitics that favored the status quo. The enduring nature of these factors means the United States and South Korea should adjust their North Korea strategy and goals to enhance peace and security on the Korean Peninsula more effectively.
In the early 1990s, diplomatic normalization between South Korea and the Soviet Union, between South Korea and China, and the signing of a historic reconciliation agreement between North and South Korea marked the beginning of the post-Cold War era on the Korean Peninsula. Many South Koreans felt hopeful that the “End of History” that seemed to be happening in Europe would also occur on the Korean Peninsula, and that North Korea’s totalitarian regime would collapse and be absorbed by South Korea. Though the Berlin Wall dividing East and West Germany fell, the Korean Demilitarized Zone separating South and North Korea remained intact.
Thiry years later, Cold War security blocs are reemerging on the Korean Peninsula. In June, North Korea and Russia signed a comprehensive strategic partnership and military alliance, reviving the 1961 North Korea-Soviet Union alliance treaty that had become defunct after the Soviet collapse. Similarly, North Korea and China also reinvigorated their own alliance in 2021, renewing the 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance.
South Korea, the United States and Japan also launched a new trilateral security cooperation initiative at the historic Camp David Summit in August 2023, pledging mutual consultation during periods of crisis. This type of cooperation had been previously hampered due to hostility between South Korea and Japan over historical issues related to the Japanese colonial period and President Donald Trump’s apathy for urging cohesion between the U.S. allies. The reconstitution of these blocs in Northeast Asia has ended the 30-year, post-Cold War period on the Korean Peninsula.
The post-Cold War era brought nearly catastrophic consequences to North Korea. The country’s economy crumbled without support from its Soviet benefactor, and natural disasters compounded the crisis, leading to mass starvation in the mid-1990s.
Yet, the Korean Peninsula did not experience post-Cold War phenomena similar to Europe. Neither regime change nor systemic collapse occurred in North Korea. Despite South Korea’s far superior military and economic power, it could neither compel unification with North Korea through absorption nor coerce it to give up nuclear development.
While North Korea’s durability is often attributed to its unique political system, this domestic explanation alone is insufficient to account for North Korea's survival and the continuation of the Cold War system on the Peninsula. Several factors in Northeast Asian geopolitics sustained North Korea, allowing it to resist the greater transformational shocks of the era.
First, the Chinese Communist Party’s enduring strength helped to prevent strategic changes on the Korean Peninsula. While the various reforms and openings occurred in Central and Eastern Europe, Communist China withstood such pressure. When the Chinese public demanded drastic political reform, the state responded with a military crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989. China’s strong and lasting presence, both as a regional power and a Communist state, provided North Korea with sufficient political, economic and security support to survive.
Second, China has traditionally viewed North Korea as a strategic buffer against U.S. influence. Therefore, it could not tolerate the collapse of North Korea or its absorption by South Korea. South Korea-led unification would create a nightmarish situation where Chinese soldiers could potentially face U.S. forces across the Yalu River. The fact that Beijing is only 700 kilometers away from Sinuiju, a North Korean city at the Yalu River estuary, provides an additional reason to keep the North Korean regime from collapsing.
Historically, China referred to its relationship with Korea as being as close as “lips and teeth,” deriving from an old Chinese saying that if the lips are gone, the teeth feel cold. On this basis, China intervened militarily in Korean wars several times over the past 1,000 years. When Japan invaded Korea at the end of the 16th century, the Ming empire sent over 50,000 troops to defend Korea and protect itself, especially Beijing. China again intervened massively during the Korean War to prevent U.S. forces from securing Korea and advancing into China. In May 2018, Chinese leader Xi Jinping reaffirmed this deep-rooted geopolitical view at a summit with Kim Jong-un, describing bilateral relations as an “unchanging lips and teeth relationship.”
Third, all four powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula — the United States, China, Japan and Russia — prefer stability on the Peninsula rather than face the risk of abrupt changes that could undermine their national interests. None of these powers want to confront political uncertainties and the risk of conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons, resulting from an abrupt breakdown of the status quo. Given the Korean Peninsula’s geostrategic location, any conflict there would involve all four powers, leading to a major regional war that no one wants. China and Japan also do not want to have an influx of refugees from any contingencies on the Peninsula into their territories.
A combination of risk aversion and inertia among the major Northeast Asian powers has worked to maintain the status quo of a divided Korea.
The potential foreign policy direction of a unified Korea also presents serious concerns for surrounding powers. The United States and Japan would be wary of a unified Korea leaning toward China or even neutrality, which would threaten Japanese and U.S. military bases in the region. Similarly, China and Russia could not tolerate the risk of a unified Korea, in partnership with the United States and Japan, that continues to host U.S. forces and deploy them near their borders. The United States still publicly supports Korean unification, but only if under a South Korea-led democratic and market-oriented system. Ultimately, a combination of risk aversion and inertia among the major Northeast Asian powers has worked to maintain the status quo of a divided Korea, while managing it to preserve their respective influence and prevent the outbreak of war.
In the face of this new Cold War environment with entrenched coalitions, the United States and South Korea must re-evaluate their strategy toward North Korea.
First, the United States and South Korea should shift their North Korea strategy away from impractical goals such as regime change, complete denuclearization and unification to urgent and realistic ones like conflict prevention, nuclear-use risk reduction and crisis management and communications. Even during the unstable post-Cold War period, North Korea effectively withstood pressure for regime change, denuclearization and unification. Now with North Korea's nuclear armament, U.S.-China strategic competition, and the return of politico-security blocs in Northeast Asia, the chances of achieving these goals have become even slimmer. Therefore, it may be more productive and even urgent to look for realistic, implementable measures to restore peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Second, South Korea and the United States have to find ways to tackle the North Korean problem on their own without China. Beijing has not caved to U.S. efforts to pressure China into shaping North Korea’s behavior by threatening adverse measures like more U.S. military deployments in South Korea. China’s preferred approach to North Korea, which favors accommodation of Pyongyang’s security concerns and greater flexibility from Washington, conflicts with the U.S. approach of recent years, which believes pressure can coerce North Korea into submission. Even during periods of greater U.S.-China cooperation in the post-Cold War era, China’s role and efforts have rarely met U.S. and South Korean preferences and expectations. In the current period of U.S.-China competition, the two allies should not expect better results from China.
South Korea and the United States have to find ways to tackle the North Korean problem on their own without China.
China’s “Three No’s” Principles for the Korean Peninsula — no war, no instability (i.e., regime collapse), and no nuclear armament — may look identical to our North Korea policy goals. However, China’s prioritization of these goals is significantly different. China appears to prefer a nuclear-armed North Korea over North Korean instability, prioritizing its own geopolitical interests over nonproliferation in Northeast Asia. Last March, China abstained from voting on the renewal of the North Korea Sanctions Committee Panels of Experts under the U.N. Security Council, aligning with Russia's veto, which effectively disbanded the sanctions monitoring mechanism. Today, the United States and South Korea should be prepared to deal with the North Korean problem without China’s help.
Third, with North Korea adopting an extremely aggressive nuclear doctrine and posture, the United States and South Korea must focus on addressing urgent nuclear policy tasks: tailoring deterrence, preventing military collision, lowering tensions and reducing nuclear risk. They should also refocus their denuclearization goals from unrealistic standards, such as "complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament," to immediate and achievable measures such as freezing nuclear material production and tests.
Lastly, to mitigate against the potential for military escalation and collision, crisis communications between the United States and North Korea, as well as between South and North Korea, should be established. In East Asia, the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Strait are two known flashpoints. The intensifying U.S.-China strategic competition has connected these two regions, raising the risks of military collisions and region-wide war even higher. Recognizing these risks, U.S. and Chinese leaders agreed on enhancing crisis management at the San Francisco summit in November 2023, leading to the opening of high-level military communication channels to prevent miscalculations, misunderstandings, and crisis escalation. However, communication with North Korea remains completely disconnected, other than one-way emails and shouting into bullhorns at the DMZ. Large-scale military exercises and activities in both South and North Korea, without clear communications, could result in inadvertent collisions. Thus, it is crucial to hold political-military dialogues and maintain military communication channels with North Korea. A region-wide security dialogue would also help ease military tensions and reduce mutual misunderstandings.