China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-1992, Chapter III, The Road to Normalisation (1990-1992)

China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-1992, Chapter III,
The Road to Normalisation (1990-1992)

From 1989 to 1991, the international system changed tremendously. The collapse of Eastern European bloc was followed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union; bipolarity during the Cold War ended. Meanwhile, the unipolar world under U.S. hegemony was emerging. These changes, of course, affected China’s foreign policy direction. The chapter will show that the new international system made the strengthening of relations with peripheral states the focus of China’s foreign policy. In addition, as the collapse of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union signified the crisis of Communism, the Chinese leadership viewed that economic reform is the only way to uphold their legitimacy. Therefore, China in the early 1990s normalised its relations with its economic partner South Korea. However, the normalisation could not have happened unless China had made an understanding with North Korea.

The significance of the end of the Cold War
The end of the Cold War affected China’s international relations and Korea policy. During the 1970s-1980s, China was a U.S. de facto ally against the Soviet Union and thus enjoyed a central position in the “strategic triangle” vis-à-vis Washington. However, as the Cold War ended, Beijing’s strategic importance in the eyes of Washington lessened. Furthermore, the Sino-American relations deteriorated after the Tiananmen incident. The U.S. victory in the Gulf War also signalled the growing influence of the United States in world affairs. On the other hand, the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Beijing of its “Russian card” to play against Washington.[1] China’s view of unipolar world was negative. As David Shambaugh says:

"From the PRC’s perspective, the prospect of unipolarity was an alarming state of affairs far worse than bipolarity. Peking’s preferences is for a multipolar world in which regional powers, such as the PRC, play defining role in their regions and are able to resist external intervention and interference in international affairs."[2]

Therefore, China decided to find its place in the new international system by improving relations with its Asian neighbours, few of which officially criticised the Tiananmen incident. Michael B. Yahuda argues that this was the first time China developed truly regional policies.[3] At the beginning of the 1990s, in addressing the changing international situation and China’s foreign policy, Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen wrote that China has now “attached special importance to developing closer relations with its neighbours, and thus articulating the dominant thrust of Chinese foreign policy in recent times.”[4] It must be noted that after the Tiananmen tragedy Premier Li Peng made his first official trip to Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Meanwhile, China established, or restored, or normalised its diplomatic relations with several neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam, Mongolia, and the newly-independent Central Asian Republics; and started its participation in ASEAN. As China must seek new sources of economic assistance to lessen its dependence on the United States, it is unlikely that South Korea did not loom large in China’s regionally-oriented foreign policy. In addition, the further opening of a Russian market to South Korea after the 1990 Soviet-South Korean normalisation stimulated China’s competitive instincts to seek the attention of South Korean business interests.[5] In short, by the early 1990s, the change in international relations led to the Asianisation of China’s foreign policy that favoured the development of the Sino-South Korean relations.

The Sino-South Korean relations from Tiananmen to normalisation
By the end of the 1980s, the Sino-South Korean unofficial relations became semi-official ones. Despite the Tiananmen incident, the Sino-South Korean economic relations increased steadily. China’s trade with South Korea reached over $3 billion in 1989, ten times bigger than that with North Korea.[6] By 1991, South Korea was China’s fifth-largest trade partner.[7] In order to normalise South Korea’s relations with China before leaving his office, South Korean President Roh Tae Woo not only refused to join the international campaign against China, but also provided assistance to China’s tourist industries which had been badly affected by the Tiananmen tragedy.[8] Both China and South Korea seized the opportunities offered by the Beijing Asian Games in September 1990 to improve their relations. Few weeks after the Asian Games, on October 1990, China and Seoul announced the establishment of trade offices in each other’s capitals. It must be noted that the South Korean trade office in Beijing was staffed by personnel from the ministry of Foreign Affairs and enjoyed diplomatic community.[9] In other words, it indicated that China had decided to shift its policy officially from one Korea to two Koreas.

Another major step toward China’s de jure two-Koreas policy was the admission of the two Koreas to the United Nations. During his visit to Pyongyang in May 1991, Premier Li Peng informed Kim Il Sung of the decision not to veto South Korea’s entry to the United Nations.[10] This decision led to the dual North-South admission to the UN. After that, the UN became a venue for Chinese and South Korean diplomats to contact each other. In September 1991, Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen met his South Korean counterpart Lee Sang Ock for the first time at the UN. Qian met Lee again in November 1991 when he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference at Seoul. Lee explored the possibility of early diplomatic relations, but Qian said that conditions were not yet ripe.[11] However, in the wake of the APEC conference, there were four incidents that precipitated the establishment of the Sino-South Korean diplomatic relations.

The first event was the North-South talks in December 1991. The years 1990 and 1991 were bad years for North Korea and led to Kim Il Sung’s reconciliatory posture toward the South which in turn favoured China’s normalisation with Seoul. The reduction of Soviet aids, the Soviet demands for payments in hard currencies, and the Soviet-South Korean normalisation cost Kim Il Sung a crucial political, military, and economic benefactor and thus worsened economic problems. In addition, Kim’s remaining major ally, China, though assuring North Korea of its security commitment, was moving toward its normalisation with the South. Therefore, Kim realised that he had no choice but to reconcile with the South and the talks began in October 1991. Eventually, according to the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression and Exchanges and Cooperation between the South and the North signed at Seoul on December 13, 1991, both sides agreed to recognise each other’s political and social system, to transform the present state of armistice in to a solid state of peace, to abandon the use of force against each other, and to conduct economic, cultural, and scientific exchanges.[12] As North Korea pursued conciliatory approaches toward the South, China began to feel free to justify that South Korea deserve de jure recognition.

The second one was Deng’s southern tour in January 1992 which favoured the Sino-South Korean normalisation in that it signalled the end of rigid doctrinism imposed after the Tiananmen tragedy. Deng viewed that China’s political system was threatened by the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the prototype of Communism, in 1991 raised questions about legitimacy in the remaining Communist countries including China. Deng argued that the Soviet disintegration was largely the result of its economic failure.[13] In other words, he realised that it is no longer possible to maintain power by upholding a strictly Marxist-Leninist system and thus the future are tied to the economic reform. While economic modernisation may eventually threaten the CCP’s monopoly of power, there is no alternative but to place the hopes of sustaining itself in power on continuing to satisfy the demands of the masses through material success.[14] Thus, by the beginning of the 1990s, China resumed its reform which was halted in the wake of the Tiananmen incident. In March 1991, Shanghai’s Jiefang Ribao published an article entitled ‘Reform and Opening up Requires New Ideas’ prepared by Mayor of Shanghai Zhu Rongji with the backing of Deng Xiaoping.[15] On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the 1911 Revolution in October 1991, Deng was quoted as saying:

"We should firmly stick to economic construction and continue along this path unless there is large scale foreign aggression. We should never divert our attention or allow undermining or interference in this central task."[16]

In January 1992, Deng Xiaoping made a historic tour to southern China and gave a green light to economic modernisation. Deng remarked:

"If China cannot rapidly develop its economy and gradually reduce the gap with Western countries and Asian NIEs, or even worse, if China’s economic reform fails as a result of political setback, stagnation, or hyperinflation, then the People’s Republic of China will definitely begin to slide into oblivion."[17]

Finally, Deng’s line defeated on March 10, 1992 when the enlarged Politburo resolved that the country should guard against turning “right” (i.e. into capitalism) but that even more importantly it should guard against turning “left” (i.e. to radical Communism).[18] This event precipitated the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and its regional economic partner South Korea.

In addition, foreign relations of China’s diplomatic rival, Taiwan, partly accelerated the Sino-South Korean normalisation. It is known that Taiwan has used “dollar diplomacy” to buy diplomatic recognition since the 1980s. In the wake of the Cold War, Taiwan tried to open relations with the newly-independent states. Taiwan’s dollar diplomacy seemed to be successful when it opened consular relations with Latvia in January 1992 and diplomatic ones with Niger in June of the same year. Therefore, China had to retaliate Taiwan by establish its diplomatic relations with South Korea, Taipei’s last diplomatic stronghold in Asia. Also, China was wary of Taiwan’s bid to (re)join the UN and the pro-independence Democratic Progress Party. China believed that the normalisation could bring the Taiwan authorities to the negotiating table because mutual commercial interest across the Taiwan Strait could be heightened if aggressive Korean entrepreneurs were further injected into competition with Taiwan in the Chinese market.[19] In other words, the Sino-South Korean normalisation further isolated Taiwan diplomatically and favoured China’s reunification.

Last but not least, the escalation of Sino-American trade disputes in 1992 partly accelerated the normalisation with Seoul. As U.S. trade deficits with China had risen from $6.235 billion in 1989 to $12.691 billion in 1991, on August 21, 1992, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) listed $3.9 billion worth of Chinese exports to the U.S. as a target of retaliation if market-access talks with Beijing were not successfully completed by an October 10 deadline.[20] Therefore, China must sign normalisation agreement with South Korea to show that it had alternative trade options to the Americans. Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in a secret report to the CCP Central Committee Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group reportedly argued that the normalisation with Seoul would “down four birds with one stone”: increasing Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation, expanding Beijing’s economic cooperation with Seoul, diminishing Pyongyang’s seemingly endless requests for aid, and defusing pressure from the United States concerning unfair trade practices.[21]

The talks on normalisation began in April 1992 and ended with the signing of a joint communiqué on the establishment of Sino-South Korean diplomatic relations by Qian Qichen and Lee Sang Ock at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on August 24, 1992. China’s de facto two-Koreas policy was eventually changed to de jure one. Few weeks later, President Roh Tae Woo made a state visit to China.

As having been mentioned so far, China’s decision to have relations with South Korea was based chiefly on economic reasons. However, China tried to make sure that the search for economic security must not be conducted at the expense of military and political security. Russell Ong argues that China in the post-Cold War era has searched for “comprehensive security” which includes military, political, economic, scientific and technological, and social security as its elements.[22] Therefore, as mentioned in the previous chapter that North Korea is still politically and strategically important for China in the post-Cold War era, China had to make sure that Pyongyang would not be antagonised by the Sino-South Korean normalisation.


Chinese diplomacy toward North Korea during the process of normalisation
Unlike the Soviet Union during its normalisation with Seoul in 1990, China, respecting North Korea’s sensibilities, negotiated the normalisation with South Korea in secrecy, kept North Korea informed of the process, and assured Kim Il Sung of China’s commitment. It also raised Kim Il Sung’s profile. In April 1992, while Foreign Minister Qian Qichen was holding a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Sang Ock, in Beijing, President Yang Shangkun visited Pyongyang to participate in the gala celebration for Kim Il Sung’s eightieth birthday. Chae-Jin Lee views that for the Chinese who do not publicly celebrate Deng Xiaoping’s birthday it was a gesture designed to boost Kim’s beleaguered position in the international community.[23] In addition, China made Kim understand that the normalisation would benefit North Korea as well. In June 1992, Qian Qichen made a secret trip to Pyongyang and explained to Kim Il Sung that China’s diplomatic relations with South Korea would help North Korea’s diplomatic relations with Japan and the United States, stabilise the Korean peninsula, and contribute to North Korea’s system maintenance.[24] Realising that he could no longer enjoy playing a “Soviet card” against China and that China is North Korea’s only major security and economic provider in the post-Cold War era, Kim Il Sung expressed his understanding, if not acceptance, of China’s decision on South Korea.[25] On the day China normalised its relations with South Korea, in order to reassure its commitment to North Korea, a “goodwill” delegation representing the Chinese People’s Liberation Army visited Pyongyang.[26] China’s diplomacy toward Pyongyang during the process of normalisation implied the importance of North Korea to China in the post-normalisation period.

[1]Xiaoxiong Yi, “China’s Korea Policy: From “One Koreas” to “Two Koreas,” Asian Affairs: An American Review, no. 2 (1995): 121.
[2]David Shambaugh, “Peking’s Foreign Policy Conundrum Since Tienanmen: Peaceful Coexistence vs. Peaceful Evolution,” Issues & Studies 28 (November 1992): 70.
[3]Michael B. Yahuda, The International Politics of Asia-Pacific, 1945-1995 (London: Routledge, 1996), 211.
[4]Xiaoxiong Yi, “China’s Korea Policy: From “One Koreas” to “Two Koreas,” : 121.
[5]Hong Liu, “The Sino-South Korean Normalization: A Triangular Explanation,” Asian Survey 33 (November 1993), 1084-1085.
[6]Hong Yung Lee, “Future Dynamics in Sino-Korea Relations,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 9 (Fall 1990): 34-49, [journal on-line] ; available from http://weblinks1.epnet.com/delivery.asp?tb=0&_ug=dbs+0+In+en-us+sid+... ; accessed 1 April 2003.
[7]Hong Yung Lee, “China and the Two Koreas: New Emerging Triangle,” in Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War, ed. Young Whan Kihl (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994), 105.
[8]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: dynamic relations (Standford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1996), 150.
[9]Hong Yung Lee, “Future Dynamics in Sino-Korea Relations,”: 33-49.
[10]Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 243-244.
[11]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: dynamic relations, 123.
[12]Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas, 262.
[13]Wei-Wei Zhang, Ideology and Economic Reform under Deng Xiaoping 1978-1993 (London: Kegan Paul International, 1996), 182.
[14]Russell Ong, China’s Security Interests in the Post-Cold War Era (London: Curzon, 2002), 51.
[15]Wei-Wei Zhang, Ideology and Economic Reform under Deng Xiaoping, 184.
[16]Cited in ibid., 182.
[17]Cited in Xiaoxiong Yi, “China’s Korea Policy: From “One Koreas” to “Two Koreas,”: 121.
[18]Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 946.
[19]Hong Liu, “The Sino-South Korean Normalization: A Triangular Explanation,”: 1090.
[20] Ibid.: 1086; and I.C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 6th ed., 962.
[21]Samuel S. Kim, “The Making of China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform” in The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, ed. David M. Lampton (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 382.
[22]Russell Ong, China’s Security Interests in the Post-Cold War Era, 18.
[23]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: dynamic relations, 91.
[24]Ibid., 125.
[25]Ibid., 125.
[26]Seongji Woo, “Adversarial Engagement and Alliance Relations: Triangular Politics on the Korean Peninsula, 1988-94,” Issues & Studies 37 (March/April 2001): 130.

China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-1992, Chapter II, The Obstacles to Two-Koreas Policy in the 1980s

China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-1992, Chapter II,
The Obstacles to Two-Koreas Policy in the 1980s


Although the Chinese leadership in the post-Mao era emphasise modernisation, China’s foreign relations are not only dictated by economic consideration, but also strategic one. China has always searched for security. As Foreign Minister Huang Hua addressed the UN General Assembly in October 1982:

"The people of all countries eagerly desire peace. China’s modernisation programme can be realised only in an international environment of enduring peace and stability. In the common interests of the people of the world, we are ready to work together with all peace-loving countries and peoples for the maintenance of world peace and international security and for the advancement of the cause of human progress."[1]

From Huang’s statement, it is clear that peace and stability are indispensable for China’s economic development. This chapter will show that the strategic and political significance of North Korea in the Sino-Soviet conflict and the Tiananmen incident made China think that antagonising North Korea could destroy China’s security and thus interrupt its modernisation. Therefore, China decided not to expand its economic relations with South Korea to political and diplomatic ones in the 1980s.

North Korea’s strategic significance in the Sino-Soviet conflict
It has been known that the Korean peninsula has been regarded by the Chinese as a valuable “outer fence”.[2] Geographically, China shares a 600 mile long border with the Korean Peninsula in its resource-rich Northeastern provinces. The western part of the Korean Peninsula is not very far away from China’s Shandong and Liaodong Peninsulas. Tianjin, a gateway to the Chinese capital city, Beijing, is just across the Bohai from Korea. Thus, the Korean Peninsula is strategically important for China and the occupation of Korea by any foreign power cannot be tolerated.[3] Before the end of the Second World War, the ambitious country trying to dominate Korea was Japan. The Ming China in 1592 and 1597 sent troops to defend Korea against the Japanese. In the late 19th century, Japan’s desire to expand its power to Korea led to the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 in which China was defeated. After that, Japan used Korea as a gateway to invade continental Asia. It annexed Korea in 1910 and invaded Manchuria and the China Proper in 1931 and 1937 respectively. During the Cold War, the United States became China’s thorn. In 1950, when the U.S.-led troops crossed the 38th parallel and moved to China’s border, Mao Zedong abandoned his plan to invade Taiwan and dispatched 1.2 million Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) to protect North Korea against the United States. However, with the Sino-American rapprochement and normalisation, the country which might use the Korean peninsula to challenge China’s security in the 1970s and 1980s was not the United States but China’s former alliance, the Soviet Union.

The Sino-Soviet conflict which began in the late 1950s reached a peak in the late 1960s and lasted until the end of the 1980s. The Soviet military buildup along Chinese borders increased after Leonid Brezhnev came to power in 1964. The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the announcement of the “Brezhnev Doctrine” which declared the Soviet Union’s right to intervene in the internal affairs of other Communist states deemed deviants from the Socialist cause made China fear that it would be the next target of Soviet invasion.[4] The border disputes became bloodshed in Xinjiang and along the Ussuri River in 1969. In the 1970s, the strengthening of the Soviet relations with India and Vietnam, the Soviet support of the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made China feel that it was being encircled by the Soviet Union. By the early 1980s, the Soviet Union had a formidable array of military forces in Northeast Asia including some 35-40% of its ICBM force and ballistic missile submarines, 25% of its ground forces and fighter aircraft, and more than 30% of its strategic bombers and navy forces.[5] The deterioration of the Sino-Soviet relations was reflected in China’s refusal in 1980 to renew the 1950 Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. In addition, China was the only Communist state that did not send an official party delegation to the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1987.[6] The rift with the Soviets made the Chinese concerned about their own security, especially at the time when the Sino-North Korean relations were not very well.

The rift between Beijing and Pyongyang began during the Cultural Revolution when Chinese Red
Guards attacked Kim Il Sung and labelled him a “fat revisionist”.[7] Although the relations had been improved after Zhou Enlai’s 1970 visit to Pyongyang to apologise for past misdeeds, the Sino-American rapprochement soured the relations again. When Kim Il Sung, during his state visit to China in April 1975, inspired by North Vietnam successful effort at reunification, asked Mao Zedong to help that over South Korea, Mao refused and told Kim that he should wait and do it when the Third World War occurred.[8] Antagonised by China’s accommodation with the Americans, North Korea began to make an overture to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet-North Korean relations were improved in the early 1980s. The Korean Airlines incident and the Rangoon bombing in 1983 provided opportunities for the two countries to get closer. Pyongyang endorsed Moscow’s explanation when the KAL airliner was shot down and the latter published the former’s defense of its position and ignored the official Burmese account of the bombing.[9] In May 1984, Kim Il Sung, for the first time in 23 years, visited the Soviet Union. Militarily, North Korea obtained 36 MiG 23 fighters, 30 SAM-3 missiles, 47 M-2 helicopter gunships and dozens of MiG 29s from the Soviet Union.[10] In addition, the two countries agreed to hold joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan and the Soviets acquired the right to fly through North Korean airspace in their missions to and from Vietnam.[11] Economically, due to an extensive aid package as a result of Kim’s visit, North Korea’s imports from the Soviet Union rose from $471 million in 1984 to $1.9 billion in 1988.[12] On Liberation Day in 1984, Kim Il Sung, for the first time in many years, praised the “liberating role played by the Soviet Union”.[13] In April 1985, the two countries signed a new border treaty which gave better access to each other’s territory, economically and militarily. In August of that year, Kim Il Sung invited Soviet First Deputy Premier Geydar Aliyev to attend the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Korea’s Liberation. It is worth noting that Pyongyang did not invite the Chinese.[14] In short, it is clear that North Korea in the 1980s tilted toward the Soviet Union.

The improvement of Soviet-North Korean relations concerned the Chinese who feared that the
Soviet Union might use North Korea as a base to challenge their security. A senior American diplomat in Beijing observed in 1984 that when Kim Il Sung announced his trip to the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries, the Chinese were “scared to death”.[15] The Soviet access to North Korean airspace threatened not only the Manchurian industrial sector but also the Bohai Gulf, the Yellow Sea shipping lanes and the Northern fleet headquarters at Qingdao.[16] “North Korea is the critical link for Moscow to complete its chain of encirclement of China. A Second Vietnam in the Korean peninsula would give the Kremlin a crucial knife pointing at the heartland of China’s industry and resources”, says Hao Yufan.[17] Therefore, China from the late 1970s to the 1980s tried to improve the relations with North Korea in order to maintain its military security. North Korea’s strategic significance made China’s normalisation with South Korea impossible. Antagonising Kim Il Sung by establishing diplomatic relations with South Korea could further strengthen his close ties with the Soviet Union and thus affected China’s search for peace during its modernisation.

China’s policy toward North Korea in the 1980s
In order to counterbalance the Soviet influence, the Chinese employed several methods in their dealings with North Korea. Senior Chinese leaders paid frequent visits to North Korea. They included Deng Xiaoping in 1982, Hu Yaobang in 1982, 1984, and 1985, Yang Shangkun in 1984 and 1988, Li Xiannian in 1980 and 1986, Zhao Ziyang in 1981 and 1989, and Li Peng in 1985. The erection of a 3.5-metre high bronze statue of Kim Il Sung at his alma mater in China’s Jilin province in October 1986 pleased Kim immensely.[18] In addition, it reaffirmed its treaty obligations and made use of its participation in the Korean War to reinforce its ties with North Korea. For instance, in October 1980, on the 30th anniversary of China’s entry to the Korean War, PLA chief of the general staff Yang Dezhi reaffirmed China’s North Korean security commitment. [19] On the 20th anniversary of the Sino-North Korean Treaty in 1981, Hu Yaobang, Yang Shangkun, and Zhao Ziyang noted the important role of the treaty in strengthening the cooperative relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang and guaranteeing peace in Asia and the world for twenty years pledged to solidify their “great unity” with North Korea.[20] Meanwhile, it is known that Beijing in the early 1980s provided Pyongyang with forty MiG-21 fighter planes.[21] Also, China approved Kim Il Sung’s reunification plan, unveiled in October 1980, to establish a Koryo Confederal Democratic Republic based on equal representation. In his speech at the rally during his visit to Pyongyang in 1981, Zhao Ziyang stated:

"The Party, Government and the people of China are at all times concerned with the Korean people’s sacred cause of independent and peaceful reunification of their fatherland. They resolutely support the correct guidelines and principled stand of the Korean Workers’ Party and the Korean Government and strongly condemn the policy of ‘two Koreas’ pursued by the United States and the south Korean authorities. … The Chinese Government and people will, as always, unswervingly support the Korean Government and people in their just struggle to oppose foreign intervention and achieve the independent and peaceful reunification of their fatherland till final victory."[22]

Furthermore, China assured North Korea that its economic relations with South Korea would not lead to diplomatic ones. Shortly after the hijack incident, Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian flew to North Korea in on May 20, 1983 to inform Kim Il Sung that China would not practice a two-Korea policy and would honour the Sino-North Korean traditional friendship and alliance.[23] During his visit to Pyongyang in 1988, Chinese President Yang Shangkun assured Kim Il Sung that China’s participation in the Seoul Olympic Games did not signal the onset of Chinese diplomatic relations with South Korea.[24] It must be noted that sometimes pressure from North Korea affected China’s economic relations with South Korea. For example, when pressed by Pyongyang on the surging Sino-South Korean trade relationship in 1980-1981, Beijing issued strict trade regulations that caused the trade to decline briefly but significantly in 1982-1983.[25] In 1986, China yielded to North Korea’s protest again by suspending the construction of the first Sino-South Korean joint venture for a year.[26]

Apart from assuring Kim Il Sung of China’s security commitment, China also respected Kim Il Sung’s designation of Kim Jong Il as his successor because a smooth political succession in North Korea was vital to China’s security. In the early 1980s, Kim Il Sung was reaching his seventies. If he died during the Sino-Soviet conflict and his successor lacked internal and external support, there might be a power struggle in Pyongyang which could be exploited by the Soviet Union and brought North Korea to the Soviet orbit. It must be noted that in the early 1980s, the Soviet Union seemed to be positioning itself to exploit internal divisions within the North Korean leadership.[27] Therefore, China should support Kim Il Sung’s wishes. In their visit to North Korea in 1982, Deng Xiaoping and Hu Yaobang expressed their willingness to recognise Kim Jong Il’s political position.[28] In June 1983, Kim Jong Il visited China and met with most members of the CCP’s Political Bureau and Secretariat. Hu Yaobang was Kim’s host during his tour of Qingdao and Nanjing, and Hu Qili guided Kim to Shanghai and Hangzhou.[29] This event indicated that Kim Jong Il gained China’s support for political succession.

For China, North Korea’s economic stability was not less important than political one. From the late 1970s, due to its heavy military budget, North Korea’s economy was so stagnant that it repeatedly asked Beijing for financial assistance.[30] China feared that economic problems in North Korea might increase Pyongyang’s financial dependence on Moscow or lead to political instability, both of which would affect China’s search for peace and security in the era of reform. As a result, China gave economic assistance to North Korea. Shortly after Hua Guofeng’s visit to North Korea in 1978, China agreed to increase its annual oil export to Pyongyang to one million metric tons but to sustain the cut-rate friendship price ($4.50 a barrel) and sent engineers and technicians to North Korea to construct oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and other related industries.[31] In January 1985, the two countries signed another agreement on economic assistance and cooperation. Also, a large-scale nuclear reactor for research was reported to be under construction in Yongbyon with Chinese help.[32] Moreover, China repeatedly suggested that North Korea should institute economic reform. During Kim Il Sung’s visit to China in 1982, Deng Xiaoping took him to Chengdu to see China’s model of development. Although Deng did not say that North Korea should emulate Chengdu, his words implied his intention. Deng told Kim:

"We must concentrate on economic development. In a country as big and as poor as ours, if we don’t try to increase production, how can we survive? How is socialism superior, when our people have so many difficulties in their lives?... at the first stage of communism, … we must do all we can to develop the productive forces and gradually eliminate poverty, constantly raising the people’s living standards. Otherwise, how will socialism be able to triumph over capitalism?"[33]

When Kim Jong Il visited China in 1983, the Chinese sent him the same message given to his father by inviting him to inspect model plants and enterprises set up with foreign investment. When Kim Il Sung visited China again in 1987, Deng invited him to visit Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, the showcase of his reform programme.

For China, however, counterbalancing the Soviet ascendancy in North Korea was not a sole way to maintain its security. China was concerned that Pyongyang’s aggression (e.g. the 1983 Rangoon bombing, and the 1987 bombing of KAL flight 858 over the border between Thailand and Burma) might lead to an instability in the Korean Peninsula. In addition, it feared that a rise in Reagan’s military budget since the early 1980s would be responsible for North Korea’s call for the increase of Soviet military assistance, affecting China’s strategic security in the Sino-Soviet conflict and, perhaps, bringing North Korea, and also China which had an obligation to defend North Korea according to the 1961 Treaty of Alliance, to the military confrontation with South Korea and the United States.[34] Although China repeatedly reaffirmed its security commitment to North Korea, in fact it was not ready to help North Korea if the war broke out. Statements made by the Chinese leadership implied that it would help Pyongyang only in the case that North Korea was attacked by others. “Should any country invade the northern part of Korea, we will, as we have stated, go all out to help you defeat the invader”, says Hu Yaobang in his interview with a Nadong Sinmun delegation in 1984.[35] The more explicit statement was made by Zhang Xiangshan, the advisor to the Department of International Liaison of the CCP, during his talk with a visiting delegation of the Japan Socialist Party in the same year. Zhang stated “if the Democratic People’s republic of Korea initiates war against South Korea, we cannot support it”.[36] In 1987, Deng Xiaoping stated that China wanted a peaceful and stable environment in the Korean Peninsula and would not support Pyongyang’s invasion of South Korea.[37] Therefore, in order to maintain peace in the Korean peninsula and continue its economic modernisation, China encouraged North Korea to open a dialogue with the United States and South Korea.

From the late 1970s to the 1980s, China played a role as a mediator between the United States and North Korea. At the end of January 1979, when Deng Xiaoping visited Washington, U.S. President Jimmy Carter asked him to help arrange North-South talks. Deng responded that North Korea was ready to talk to the United States and there was absolutely no danger of a North Korean attack.[38] On September 28, 1983, shortly after his secret meeting between with Kim Il Sung at Dalian, Deng Xiaoping told U.S. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger that Kim was willing to take a conciliatory posture toward the United States.[39] Ten days later, after informed by North Korea, China told the U.S. embassy in Beijing that North Korea agreed to hold tripartite talks between the United States and the two Koreas.[40] However, the Rangoon bombing in October of that year dampened the prospect of talks. Deng Xiaoping was so furious at Pyongyang for staging the bombing that he refused to see any North Koreans for weeks and the controlled Chinese media gave equal treatment to the North Korean denials and the damning official reports from Rangoon.[41] In December of the same year, China and North Korea resumed the consultations on tripartite talks. Shortly after North Korea’s public announcement of its proposal to hold tripartite talks on January 10, 1984, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed it as a useful proposal to ease tensions in the Korean Peninsula and Premier Zhao Ziyang, during his visit to Washington, supported it in his meeting with President Reagan.[42] Although, due to American and South Korean mistrust of Kim Il Sung and North Korea’s refusal to apologise for the Rangoon bombing, tripartite talks did not happen, China continued its attempt to encourage a dialogue between North Korea and the United States. During Reagan’s visit to China in April 1984, Zhao Ziyang told him that “it is still China’s hope that tripartite talks will be held at an early date.”[43]

In March 1987, when the Reagan administration considered a new policy toward North Korea and permitted the U.S. officials to have contacts with North Korean officials, the Chinese welcomed it and sent Director of the CCP Department of International Liaison Zhu Liang to talk with Kim Il Sung. China argued that the United States and North Korea cannot be expected to solve all complex issues at once, but should adopt a realistic and sincere step-by-step approach to reduce tensions in the Korean peninsula.[44] In fact, China was behind Reagan’s decision. Deng Xiaoping in his meeting with a Japanese political leader on June 4, 1987 made it clear that it was China that asked the United States to contact North Korea.[45] Unfortunately, the bombing of Korean Airline flight 858 from Abu Dhabi to Seoul by North Korean espionage agents in November 1987 brought about the hardening of North Korea’s relations with the United States and South Korea. China’s response to the incident was that it opposed any form of international terrorism.[46] In his speech at a Pyongyang banquet in on April 24, 1989, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang told his North Korean counterpart that the strongest trends in the world were to turn confrontation into dialogue and tension into moderation.[47] In short, it is obvious that China favoured an improvement in U.S.-North Korea relations to avoid tensions and instability in the Korean peninsula which might affect China’s security and economic development.

China’s concerns about North Korea’s strategic significance lessened after the Sino-Soviet rapprochement in the late 1980s. After Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1985, he improved relations with China by overcoming the “three obstacles” which had threatened China’s security: the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet troop deployment along the Sino-Soviet border and in Mongolia, and the Soviet support of Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia.[48] In addition, in order to institute economic reform, he reduced Soviet aids to Pyongyang and favoured economic relations with Seoul which could help develop the Soviet Far East.[49] On May 16, 1989, the historic summit between Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev that normalised the Sino-Soviet relations took place in Beijing. In other words, by May 1989, the Sino-Soviet conflict and their competition over North Korea were a history. Therefore, North Korea’s significance for China’s security decreased markedly and China seemed ready to establish diplomatic relations with South Korea. Unfortunately, the Tiananmen incident that took place few weeks after the Sino-Soviet normalisation increased North Korea’s significance for China’s security again. According to some sources, had there been no Tiananmen incident on June 4, 1989, China would have set up a government office in Seoul in September 1989, and probably will have established diplomatic relations with South Korea sometime in 1990.[50] Thus, it is worth considering the significance of North Korea for China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident, a factor that retarded the Sino-South Korean normalisation until the early 1990s.

Pyongyang’s significance for China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident
The Tiananmen crackdown brought about the fall of a liberal Zhao Ziyang and the return of rigid doctrinism. In the eyes of Chinese leadership, in order to establish national solidarity, political methods would be more effective than economic devices, at least in the short run.[51] Octogenarian leaders who returned to control political agendas after their eclipse during the decade of reform viewed that the Tiananmen protests and the U.S.-led sanctions were part of the United States’ “peaceful evolution” policy aiming to transform China into America’s image by using various methods: military pressure; economic measures; cultural exchange programmes; and the infiltration bourgeois ideas via the electronic and print media.[52] In addition, market-oriented reform was viewed as the root cause of bourgeois liberalisation.[53] Therefore, the collective worldview of Chinese leadership after 1989 was a throwback to the class-based, two-camp struggle between socialist and imperialist systems that was dominant during Mao’s era.[54] As Politburo Standing Committee member Yao Yilin warned at an emergency enlarged Politburo meeting following the Tiananmen massacre:

"We must on no account take the Polish road or the Hungarian road that the American Dulles designed in the 1950s for the gradual transformation of communist countries. Over the past decades, the imperialists have never changed their original design. They came to cooperate with us and express friendship not only for the purpose of making money but also for the purpose of changing the nature of our country and remodelling our country to become a capitalist society."[55]

In addition, the Tiananmen incident was followed by the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. These trends made the Chinese leadership realise that their political system was in danger and that they must bring its political and ideological ties with the remaining Communist countries.[56] As a result, China needed a neighbouring Communist North Korea as an ally to fend off the peaceful evolution. In addition, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States still asserts its hegemony in Northeast Asia by regularly conducting military exercises with South Korea which China sees as a threat to North Korea. As China has considered North Korea as a buffer state, any action threatening Pyongyang indirectly threatens Beijing as well.[57] A Chinese source reported that in 1990 an internal document was issued instructing all government agencies to support North Korea politically and economically.[58]

China’s relations with North Korea became closer in the wake of the Tiananmen incident. Deng Xiaoping appreciated that North Korea was one of the few countries that supported the PLA crackdown on demonstrations. In their meeting in Beijing in December 1989, Deng Xiaoping and Kim Il Sung agreed to preserve the supremacy of their respective communist parties and stressed their firm commitment to the socialist road.[59] In 1990 and 1991, China seized several opportunities to assure North Korea that their friendship would endure many generations. For example, when Kim Il Sung made his thirty-ninth visit to Beijing in October 1991, Renmin Ribao reported:

"The main objective of Chairman Kim Il Sung’s visit is to further strengthen the traditional friendship between the two parties, the two states, and the two peoples. … Regardless of whatever change may take place in the international situation, the friendship between China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will not change, and will remain permanent."[60]

Economically, due to the Soviet withdrawal of economic assistance, China increased its aids to North Korea because it feared that economic problems in Pyongyang might contribute to the collapse of the North Korean regime.[61] When Kim Il Sung in 1991 pleaded for a loan of 35 billion yuan without any political conditions attached and three millions tons of oil per year, Deng promised a delivery of 1.7 tons of oil – about 500,000 tons more than China was supplying to North Korea – and agreed to postpone carrying out financial transactions in hard currencies.[62] Meanwhile, it continued urging North Korea to reform its autarkic economic system. When General Secretary Jiang Zemin met North Korean Premier Yon Hyong Muk at the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in November 1990, he told Yon that Shenzhen’s success proved that China could pursue an open-door economic policy and preserve the socialist road at the same time, suggesting that North Korea should not be afraid to reform its economy and open its doors to the outside world.[63] Moreover, China supported North Korea’s participation in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Tumen River Area Development Project in 1991.

However, by the beginning of the 1990s, China realised that its return to rigid doctrinism and the strengthening of its relations with North Korea were not enough to cope with the changing international system. Therefore, China under Deng Xiaoping decided to reorient its foreign policy which facilitated the Sino-South Korean normalisation in 1992.

[1]Huang Hua, “China’s Position on Current World Issues – Foreign Minister Huang Hua’s address to UN General Assembly, October 4 ,” Beijing Review, 11 October 1982, 15.
[2]Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 332.
[3]Zhang Xiaoming, “The Korean Peninsula and China’s National Security: Past, Present and Future,” Asian Perspective, no. 3 (1998): 259.
[4]Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 3rd ed., 738.
[5]Hao Yufan, “China and the Korean Peninsula: A Chinese View,” Asian Survey 27 (August 1987): 864.
[6]Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 687.
[7]Parris H. Chang, “Beijing’s Policy toward Korea and PRC-ROK Normalization of Relations,” in The Changing Order in Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula, ed. Manwoo Lee and Richard W. Mansbach (Seoul: Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University, 1993), 162.
[8]Parris H. Chang, “China’s East Asian Policy during the Deng Era,” in Peace and Cooperation in Northeast Asia, ed. Dalchoong Kim (Seoul: Institute of East and West Studies, Yonsei University, 1990), 111.
[9]Hao Yufan, “China and the Korean Peninsula: A Chinese View,”: 866-867.
[10]Parris H. Chang, “Beijing’s Policy toward Korea and PRC-ROK Normalization of Relations,” , 164.
[11]Ibid.
[12]Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 156.
[13]Hao Yufan, “China and the Korean Peninsula: A Chinese View,”: 867.
[14]Ibid.: 867.
[15]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: dynamic relations (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1996), 81.
[16]Hao Yufan, “China and the Korean Peninsula: A Chinese View,”: 868.
[17]Ibid.: 874-875.
[18]Chae-Jin Lee, “China’s Pragmatic Policy Orientation and its Implication for Korean Unification,” in Perspectives on The Peaceful Reunification of Korea, ed. Hong Nack Kim et al. (Seoul: Institute of Korean Studies, 1988), 17.
[19]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 73.
[20]Ibid., 71.
[21]Chu Sung-po, “Peking’s Relations with South and North Korea in the 1980s,” Issues and Studies 22 (November 1986): 74-75.
[22]“Premier Zhao Ziyang Visits Korea,” Beijing Review, 4 January 1982, 5.
[23]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 107.
[24]Ibid., 113.
[25]Jia Hao and Zhang Qubing, “China’s Policy toward the Korean Peninsula,” Asian Survey 32 (December 1992): 1144.
[26]Ibid.
[27] Hao Yufan, “China and the Korean Peninsula: A Chinese View,”: 870.
[28]Chu Sung-po, “Peking’s Relations with South and North Korea in the 1980s,”: 75.
[29]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 72.
[30] Chu Sung-po, “Peking’s Relations with South and North Korea in the 1980s,”: 74.
[31]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 135.
[32]Chong Wook Chung, “China’s Role in Two-Koreas Relations in the 1980s,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 5 (Fall 1986): 56.
[33]Wei-Wei Zhang, Ideology and Economic Reform under Deng Xiaoping 1978-1993 (London: Kegan Paul International, 1996), 52.
[34]Hao Yufan, “China and the Korean Peninsula: A Chinese View,”: 878; and Ilpyong J. Kim, “China and the Two Koreas in the post-Seoul Olympics Era,” Korea Observer 14 (Autumn 1988): 14.
[35]Chae-Jin Lee, “The Role of China in the Korean Unification Process,” Asian Perspective 10 (Spring-Summer 1986): 102.
[36]Ibid.: 102-103.
[37]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 79.
[38]Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas, 105.
[39]Chae-Jin Lee, “The Role of China in the Korean Unification Process,” : 106.
[40]Ibid.
[41]Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas, 145.
[42]Chae-Jin Lee, “The Role of China in the Korean Unification Process,” : 106.
[43]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 111.
[44]Chae-Jin Lee, “China’s Pragmatic Policy Orientation and its Implication for Korean Unification,”, 18.
[45]Jae Ho Chung, “South Korea-China Economic Relations: The Current Situation and Its Implications,” Asian Survey 28 (October 1988): 1046.
[46]Ilpyong J. Kim, “China and the Two Koreas in the post-Seoul Olympics Era,” Korea Observer 14 (Autumn 1988): 281.
[47]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 84.
[48]Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997), 49.
[49]Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas, 203.
[50]Weiqun Gu, “China’s ‘Open-Door’ Policy and the Korean Peninsula,” in Peace and Cooperation in Northeast Asia, 115.
[51]Kim Hakjoon, Korea’s Relations with Her Neighbors in a Changing World, second printing (Seoul: Hollym Corporation, 1993), 525.
[52]David Shambaugh, “Peking’s Foreign Policy Conundrum Since Tienanmen: Peaceful Coexistence vs. Peaceful Evolution,” Issues & Studies 28 (November 1992): 69.
[53] Wei-Wei Zhang, Ideology and Economic Reform under Deng Xiaoping 1978-1993, 180.
[54]David Shambaugh, “Peking’s Foreign Policy Conundrum Since Tienanmen,”: 68-69.
[55]Ibid.: 69.
[56]The impact of Eastern European events on China’s domestic politics is explained in Robert L. Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations 1989-2000 (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 103-107.
[57]Russell Ong, China’s Security Interests in the Post-Cold War Era (London: Curzon, 2002), 58.
[58]Hong Yung Lee, “Future Dynamics in Sino-Korea Relations,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 9 (Fall 1990): 34-49, [journal on-line] ; available from http://weblinks1.epnet.com/delivery.asp?tb=0&_ug=dbs+0+In+en-us+sid+... ; accessed 1 April 2003.
[59]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 119.
[60]Cited in Hong Yung Lee, “China and the Two Koreas: New Emerging Triangle,” in Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War, ed. Young Whan Kihl (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994), 102.
[61]Parris H. Chang, “Beijing’s Policy toward Korea and PRC-ROK Normalization of Relations,” ,167.
[62] Hong Yung Lee, “China and the Two Koreas: New Emerging Triangle,” : 101; and Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 91.
[63]Ibid., 138-139.

China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-1992, Chapter I, China’s Unofficial Relations with South Korea since 1979

China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-1992, Chapter I,

China’s Unofficial Relations with South Korea since 1979

Before the late 1970s, China pursued a rigid one-Korea policy recognising North Korea as a sole legitimate state of Korea. Beijing and Pyongyang signed a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance in July 1961. However, there was a major change in China’s policy toward the Korean Peninsula in the 1980s when Beijing began to acknowledge, though not recognise, South Korea’s governmental authority and economic interaction between these two countries increased steadily. This chapter shows that the Sino-South Korean interaction in the 1980s was a result of the new political leadership in China in the post-Mao era that adopted a more liberal policy, emphasised national economic development and saw South Korea as a source of capital and technology and a model of economic development. Also, South Korea’s willingness to open its door to Communist countries favoured the increase of interaction between Beijing and Seoul.

The new Chinese leadership in the late 1970s
The death of Chairman Mao Zedong and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976 signalled the end of the Maoist era. Deng Xiaoping became China’s paramount leader, initiated economic reform and abandoned Mao’s radicalism. By the end of 1978, the Red Guards were dissolved; the cult of Mao was attacked and the Cultural Revolution was dubbed “the most devastating setback and heavy losses to the party, the state, and the people in the history of the People’s Republic”[1]. The Deng line called for the blending of socialist and capitalist ways:

"Only when we merge the superiority of the socialist system with the advanced science and technology of the developed capitalist countries and their advanced managerial experience, only when we combine what is useful in foreign experience with our specific conditions and successful experience can we … speed up the tempo of the Four Modernisations."[2]

Eventually, the Four Modernisations were written into the party constitution in the Eleventh Congress in August 1977 and the state constitution in the Fifth National People’s Congress in March 1978. In the eyes of the new leadership, modernisation became the “general mission of a new historical period”.[3] The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Third Plenum in December 1978 established a reform-oriented policy agenda. Deng’s view on market economy was positive. He told a delegation from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. in November 1979 that:

"It is surely not correct to say that market economy is only confined to capitalist society. Why cannot socialism engage in market economy? … A market economy existed already in the feudal society. Socialism may also engage in market economy."[4]

In 1981, Mao’s successor, Chairman Hua Guofeng, who had been gradually sidelined since 1978, was finally replaced by a liberal Hu Yaobang. Although Hu was later suddenly dismissed in January 1987, his successor as CCP General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, assured that China would not abandon the open-door policy. He proclaimed at the Fifth Session of the Sixth People’s Congress held in March and April 1987:

"We shall open wider to the outside world and explore new possibilities for the effective use of foreign funds, the imports of advanced technology and the earning of foreign exchange through export. In this way our open policy will play a greater role in China’s economic development and social modernisation. Using foreign funds and attracting foreign businessmen to launch joint ventures, cooperative enterprises or wholly foreign-owned ones is a major component of our open policy."[5]

It is clear that the political leadership in China from the late 1970s had abandoned Mao’s rigid doctrinism and emphasised economic reform. This policy orientation favoured China’s economic interaction with the outside world, including South Korea.

The Chinese assessment of South Korea’s economic performance
South Korean economy had grown steadily during the reign of General Park Chung Hee (1961-1979). According to the World Bank, South Korea’s inflation-adjusted GNP tripled in each decade after Park’s first year in office. At the same time, the country dramatically reduced the incidence of poverty, from more than 40 percent of all households living below the poverty line in 1965 to fewer than 10 percent in 1980. Per capita income shot up from less than $100 annually when Park took power to more than $1,000 at the time of his death.[6] In addition, despite the economic growth, South Korean authorities were still able to maintain authoritarian rule, at least until the mid-1980s. As a result, economic prosperity in South Korea in the late 1970s did attract the new Chinese leadership’s interest.

Before the end of the 1970s, China rarely had any interaction with South Korea, except the exchanges of mail between South Koreans living in China and overseas Chinese in South Korea.[7] However, on September 7, 1978, an official of the New China News Agency said the economic success of South Korea was worthy of attention.[8] At the same time, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) established a small research group under the Institute of World Economy and Politics to study the developmental model of South Korea’s economy.[9] During his visit to Japan in 1979, Deng Xiaoping said that China should learn from the developmental experience of South Korea and Taiwan.[10] It has been known that the establishment of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in 1979 was modelled on South Korea’s export processing zones. Hu Yaobang once asked: Why is South Korea doing better than North Korea, Taiwan better than the mainland and West Germany better than East Germany?[11] On December 14, 1980, in an interview with the official newspaper of the Greek Communist Party, Hu commented that “China’s open door policy is based upon the developmental experiences of Yugoslavia, Rumania and South Korea”.[12] In the same month, Zhao Ziyang was reported to have said that in an interview with Yugoslavian reporters that “China is in fact studying the experiences of South Korea in economic development”.[13] A number of Chinese publications, magazines, and newspapers in the 1980s openly praised South Korea’s economic success. For example, In Jinji Cankuo (Economic reference), edited by the Xinhua News Agency in October 1986, the Chinese referred to South Korea as one of Asia’s four dragons whose record should be studied. [14]

For China, South Korea was not only a model of economic development. China’s modernisation cannot be fulfilled without external support and exchanges from industrialised countries, which can provide advanced technology, capital, markets and managerial skills. As a newly industrialised country and a close neighbour of China, South Korea fits nicely into most of these categories. The Chinese found that South Korea’s capital is a potential source of foreign investment and the intermediate technology of South Korea was more suitable to their practical needs than the expensive high-technology of the United States, Japan, and Western Europe.[15] As Dan C. Sanford argues in his book, South Korea and the Socialist Countries: the Politics of Trade:

"Even though China has always preferred to import original technology, its managerial teams have not always been competent to handle the final processing of the semi-finished products it purchases. China will continue to import some consumer goods, but wishes to move toward the import of parts and components which will be assembled into finished goods at domestic factories. Thus, China sent technicians to Korea to learn how best to assimilate some of the sophisticated Japanese steel production technology it imports. South Koreans, of course, have mastered these intermediate technology processes and have become skilled at making production quicker and more efficient. China hopes its industrial leaders will learn from South Korea and therefore is especially eager to encourage joint ventures with South Korean firms."[16]

South Korea also provides for the Chinese a growing export market for mainland’s primary resources and industrial material. In addition, geographic proximity and cultural affinity between China and South Korea reduce transportation costs and barriers to communication. China’s Liaodong and Shandong Peninsulas and Bohai area are just across the Yellow Sea from the west coast of Korea and there are sizeable groups of ethnic Koreans living in Northeastern Chinese cities such as Harbin and Shenyang who can be an indispensable asset in smoothing Chinese correspondence with South Korean businessmen.[17] As a result, on December 18, 1978, Chinese Minister of Foreign Trade Li Qiang mentioned in an interview in Hong Kong that “China may have to consider having trade with South Korea”.[18] Few months later, indirect trade between China and South Korea via Hong Kong and Japan started. Chinese Foreign Minister Huang Hua, in his foreign policy address in January 1980, described China’s South Korea policy as Guanmen Bushangsuo (“the door is closed but not locked”).[19]

In contrast, the economy of China’s traditional ally, North Korea, still clinging on Kim Il Sung’s state ideology of Juche (self-reliance), did not fit Deng’s reform. After reaching a peak of its economic prosperity in the 1960s, North Korea in the 1970s began to face economic difficulties. Most competent economic advisors with managerial skills were purged in the mid-1960s. Its technological and economic backwardness and inefficiency became obvious but the government still preferred mass mobilisation to economic adjustments. By the end of the 1970s, the GNP of North Korea was only $12.40 billion whereas that of South Korea was $62.37 billion.[20] In addition, heavy defense expenditures and political campaigns exhausted North Korea’s financial resources. Its foreign debts rose so steadily that it rescheduled its Western European and Japanese payments due in the early 1980s.[21] It is clear that North Korea could not provide what China wants in the era of reform, i.e. advanced technology, capital, markets and managerial skills.

In short, by the end of the 1970s, attracted by South Korean economic performance, China became eager to engage with South Korea economically. However, the Sino-South Korean economic interaction in the 1980s could not have happened if South Korea had not pursued an open-door policy toward the Communist countries since the 1970s.

South Korea’s “Open-Door” policy since the 1970s
In the early 1970s, international strategic system changed significantly. The Sino-American confrontation came to the end after President Richard M. Nixon visited China in February 1972. Beijing and Washington became de facto allies against the Soviet Union. This change made the U.S. allies in the Cold War, including South Korea, adjust their foreign policy direction by opening their relations with the Communist nations. On June 23, 1973, President Park Chung Hee made a major speech, “New Foreign Policy for Peace and Unification”. Park stated:

"The Republic of Korea will open its door to all the nations of the world on the basis of the principles of reciprocity and equality. At the same time, we urge those countries whose ideologies and social institutions are different from ours to open their doors likewise to us."[22]

Park’s statement signalled South Korea’s abandonment of the “Hallstein Doctrine”, the practice of not having relations with any country that recognised the North Korean regime.[23] On November 17, 1978, coinciding with China’s opening to the outside world and its emphasis upon economic modernisation, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Dong Jin made it clear that “the government will not prohibit any commercial activities with communist countries, with which it does not have diplomatic relations.”[24] South Korea’s open-door policy culminated in the late 1980s with President Roh Tae Woo’s Nordpolitik (Northern Diplomacy), aiming to develop relations with the socialist countries. In his first speech at the U.N. General Assembly in October 1988, Roh stated:

"I welcome as an encouraging development the fact that socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union are showing a forward-looking attitude in recent months concerning mutual exchanges and cooperation with the Republic of Korea in a number of fields. I find it significant that China, a nation which has traditionally been a good neighbour of Korea, is moving to overcome the wall of separation that has lasted for nearly half a century and is expanding its mutual exchanges and cooperation with the Republic of Korea."[25]

Indeed, South Korea’s foreign policy reorientation was not based only on geopolitical consideration, but also economic one. By the beginning of the 1980s, South Korean export-oriented economy faced a series of problems such as labour shortages, high wages, lack of natural resources, limited domestic consumption, global protectionism, and appreciation in currency.[26] Thus, Seoul wanted to diversify its economy by exploring economic relations with China which possesses a huge market, ample labour, and rich natural resources.

The interaction between China and South Korea in the 1980s
As China’s modernisation coincided with South Korea’s open-door policy, economic interaction between the two countries increased steadily in the 1980s, especially after the hijack incident, a significant breakthrough in Sino-South Korean relations. In May 1983, after six armed Chinese civilians had hijacked an airplane from Shenyang to Seoul, China dispatched a negotiating team to Seoul. This was the first official contact between the two countries[27]. In August of that year, it was the first time the Chinese government decided to grant a visa to a South Korea government official who attended a seminar at Wuxi under the auspices of the United Nations.[28]

Another opportunity for the Sino-South Korean negotiation came in March 1985 when a mutiny on a Chinese navy torpedo set it adrift on the high seas; it was founded by a South Korean fishing boat and towed to Kunsan in South Korea. Apart from crisis management, China sustained its unofficial relations with South Korea by conducting sports diplomacy. In March 1984, South Korea attended the Davis Tennis Cup’s preliminary games at Kunming. Beijing sent a large delegation to the 1986 Seoul Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. These events provided a convenient excuse for Beijing to come to direct contact with Seoul and thus facilitated economic interaction between these two countries. Direct trade secretly began in 1981 and became an open secret by the mid-1980s.[29] China’s frontline organisation that directly dealt with South Korea was the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), an agency under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade (MOFERT). China’s trade volume with South Korea, after a slight decline in 1981-1982, rose from $120 million in 1983 to $434 million in 1984 and $3.09 billion in 1988, five times bigger than that of its trade with North Korea and making South Korea China’s fourth or fifth largest trading partner.[30] China exported agricultural products (corn, millet, and oil), natural resources (coal), textiles, silk, jute fibres, cotton yarn, and other raw materials to South Korea and imported intermediate technology goods – steel products, electronics, electrical appliances, textiles, machine tools, petrochemicals, and chemical fertilizers – from South Korea. [31]

Meanwhile, South Korea’s investment in China began, although its amount was not very significant relative to the size of its trade with China.[32] The first joint venture agreement was made in February 1985 between Sovereign Industries, a New York-based Daewoo company, and Ming Long Development Company of Jujina Enterprises that represents the commercial interests of Fujian Province. The joint firm was named King Woo and its first work was to build a television and refrigerator assembly plant in Fuzhou.[33]

In addition, the increase of economic interaction between China and South Korea was partly a result of pressure from China’s provinces. The Chinese government in the era of reform has conferred on the provinces the new authority to sign trade and direct investment with foreign companies, with the size of projects closely monitored by the centre. Since the province can now retain a portion of its foreign currency earnings, it naturally strives to expand the base of its foreign currency earnings by promoting more trade and luring more foreign investment.[34] During the early years of Deng’s reform, the preferential policies were applied to Fujian and Guangdong. By the mid-1980s, however, other provinces, including South Korea’s neighbouring Liaodong and Shandong provinces, began to lobby for the universalisation of preferential policies.[35] With the compatibility of these two countries’ economies and provincial pressure, it is no coincidence that in late 1987 the South Korean government announced a large-scale development plan for its western coastal region called the “Yellow Sea Project” at the same time the Chinese government announced a decision to further open the Shandong and Liaodong Peninsulas.[36] In August of the following year, the Shandong Branch of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) signed trade agreements with the Korean Trade Promotion Corporation (KOTRA) and opened the first representative office of a Chinese local government in Seoul.

Meanwhile, China’s diplomatic stance toward South Korea changed. Before the late 1970s, China recognised North Korea as a sole legitimate state of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea, in China’s eyes, was a territory “under the occupation of U.S. imperialism” ruled by “its lackey the Park Chung Hee puppet clique”.[37] From the late 1970s, however, Beijing began to acknowledge, if not recognise, Seoul’s governmental authority. During his five-day visit to Pyongyang in May 1978, Hua Guofeng’s characterisation of the Park government was less provocative and militant than before: he did not use such expression as “fascist dictatorship,” “suppression of democratic struggle,” or “continual military provocations against North Korea”. [38] In a nine-article memorandum settling the 1983 hijack incident, it listed the South Korean delegate, Gong Ro Myong, as representing “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Republic of Korea”.[39] In the 1984 Davis Cup’s preliminary games, China permitted the South Korean team to display its national flag at the airport and during the games.[40] Also, the memorandum settling the 1985 torpedo incident specifically referred to “the Republic of Korea”.[41] In 1984, Zhao Ziyang was reported to have gone so far as to tell visiting Australian Prime Minister Hawke that “it isn’t feasible” to reunify Korea any longer, given the reality of two governments on the Peninsula.[42] Therefore, it can be argued that China in the 1980s pursued a de facto two-Koreas policy.

Overall, it is obvious that the Sino-South Korean relations in the 1980s were a result of the new Chinese leadership who emphasised economic modernisation and saw South Korea’s economic potential to fulfil China’s developmental goal. South Korea’s foreign policy orientation since the 1970s also facilitated their interaction. In addition, crisis management and sports diplomacy helped China sustain and strengthen these unofficial relations as well.

However, it must be noted that the Sino-Korean trade was not conducted by the central government at Beijing but, as mentioned, by provincial governments, special agencies, and trading firms in Hong Kong instead. In addition, although the trade volume between China and South Korea rose tremendously in the late 1980s and the former acknowledged the latter’s governmental authority, China did not plan to establish diplomatic relations with South Korea until the early 1990s. Therefore, it is worth considering the factors that retarded the Sino-South Korean normalisation. The next chapter will show that security and political concerns made China reluctant to recognise South Korea in the 1980s.

[1]Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 825-826.
[2]Cited in ibid., 806.
[3]Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 3rd ed, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 833.
[4]Wei-Wei Zhang, Ideology and Economic Reform under Deng Xiaoping 1978-1993 (London: Kegan Paul International, 1996), 60.
[5]Chae-Jin Lee, “China’s Pragmatic Policy Oreientation and its Implication for Korean Unification,” in Perspectives on The Peaceful Reunification of Korea, ed. Hong Nack Kim et al. (Seoul: Institute of Korean Studies, 1988), 7.
[6]Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 37.
[7]Chu Sung-po, “Peking’s Relations with South and North Korea in the 1980s,” Issues and Studies 22 (November 1986): 75.
[8]Jae Ho Chung, “South Korea-China Economic Relations: The Current Situation and Its Implications,” Asian Survey 28 (October 1988): 1033.
[9]Ibid: 1033-34.
[10]Ilpyong J. Kim, “China and the Two Koreas in the post-Seoul Olympics Era,” Korea Observer 14 (Autumn 1988): 275.
[11]Weiqun Gu, “China’s ‘Open-Door’ Policy and the Korean Peninsula,” in Peace and Cooperation in Northeast Asia, ed. Dalchoong Kim (Seoul: Institute of East and West Studies, Yonsei University, 1990), 115 .
[12]Jae Ho Chung, “South Korea-China Economic Relations,”: 1034.
[13]Ibid.
[14]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: dynamic relations (Standford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1996), 145.
[15]Ibid., 149.
[16] Dan C. Sanford, South Korea and the Socialist Countries: The Politics of Trade (London: Macmillan Press, 1990), 32-33.
[17]Ibid.
[18]Jae Ho Chung, “South Korea-China Economic Relations,” : 1033.
[19]Xiaoxiong Yi, “China’s Korea Policy: From “One Korea” to “Two Koreas,” Asian Affairs: An American Review, no. 2 (1995): 123.
[20]Adrian Buzo, The Guerilla Dynasty: Politics and Leadership in North Korea (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999), 91.
[21]Ibid., 122.
[22]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 106.
[23]Ahn Byung-joon, “South Korea and the Communist Countries,” Asian Survey 20 (November 1980): 1102. The doctrine was first expressed by Foreign Minister of Federal Republic of Germany Walter Hallstein in 1955. It dictated that West Germany would sever official ties with any countries that recognised East Germany except the Soviet Union.
[24]Jae Ho Chung, “South Korea-China Economic Relations,”: 1033.
[25]Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 112-113.
[26] Zhang Xiaoming, “The Korean Peninsula and China’s National Security: Past, Present and Future,” Asian Perspective, no. 3 (1998): 266; and Jia Hao and Zhang Qubing, “China’s Policy toward the Korean Peninsula,” Asian Survey 32 (December 1992): 1145.
[27]Chu Sung-po, “Peking’s Relations with South and North Korea in the 1980s,”: 76.
[28]Chae-Jin Lee, “The Role of China in the Korean Unification Process,” Asian Perspective 10 (Spring-Summer 1986): 110.
[29] Dan C. Sanford, South Korea and the Socialist countries: The Politics of Trade, 9-13.
[30]Zhang Xiaoming, “The Korean Peninsula and China’s National Security: Past, Present and Future,”: 264-265; and Parris H. Chang, “China’s East Asian Policy during the Deng Era,” in Peace and Cooperation in Northeast Asia, 54. See North Korea’s trade with China in from 1970 to 1994 in Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea, 140.
[31]Ibid., 147.
[32]Jae Ho Chung, “Sino-South Korean Economic Cooperation: An Analysis of Domestic and Foreign Entanglements,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies 9 (Summer 1990): 59-79, [journal on-line] ; available from http://weblink2.epnet.com/delivery.asp?tb=1&_ug=dbs+0+1n+en-us+sid+3087E9E8-D6C... ; accessed 25 July 2003.
[33]Jae Ho Chung, “South Korea-China Economic Relation,”: 1042.
[34]Jae Ho Chung, “Sino-South Korean Economic Cooperation,”: 59-79.
[35]Peter T. Y. Cheung and James T. H. Tang, “The External Relations of China’s Provinces,” in The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, ed. David M. Lampton (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2001), 97 and 117.
[36]Jae Ho Chung, “South Korea-China Economic Relations,” : 1045.
[37]See President Liu Shaoqi’s statement at a mass rally at Pyongyang in 1963 and the 1970 joint communiqué between Premier Zhou Enlai and Premier Kim Il Sung in Chae-Jin Lee, China and South Korea, 61 and 64.
[38]Ibid., 69.
[39]Ibid., 107.
[40]Ibid., 109.
[41]Ibid., 110
[42]Norman D. Levin, “Evolving Chinese and Soviet Policies toward the Korean Peninsula,” in Chinese Defense and Foreign Policy, ed. June Teufel Dreyer (New York: Paragon House, 1988), 191.