Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

So, to eliminate regional unstable factors and to guard the peaceful global community, it is of great importance for the United States and China to realize strategic cooperation on addressing these issues, which means identifying the root of problems, respecting each other’s specific concerns, as well as coordinating and shouldering responsibilities together. Since it is vague to give suggestions without a case-by-case basis, here I refer to the North Korean nuclear issue to analysis how the United States and China can work together better by following the above principles.

The North Korean nuclear issues has developed from conflict between North Korea and the U.S. alliance in the early 1990s into North Korea’s hostility against the international community. This issue not only threatens security of regional countries, but also causes secondary issues such as nuclear smuggling, and damages the authority of the United Nations Security Council and nonproliferation campaign. Both the United States and China have taken considerable efforts to address it, but all efforts have failed to a degree; and recently, neither Obama’s strategic patience nor China’s appeal of double suspension negotiation has led to any positive outcome. The United States and China need a new approach to work together.

The first step to break the predicament is to mutually recognize that North Korea’s isolation from the international community is the crux of this problem. North Korea lost most economic and security support after the Soviet Union collapsed; at that time, the United States made a few tries to accept North Korea into the international family, and China, following “Keeping a Low Profile” policy, offered little help to its old friend. This isolation forced North Korea to prioritize survival through self-reliance measures, which turned out to be developing nuclear weapons, rather than relying on a collective security system. Being isolated also made North Korea less concerned about worldwide oppositions against its extreme behaviors and limited the effectiveness of sanctions measures. The United States and China have to agree that both were in different degrees responsible for North Korea’s isolation, and both should play fundamental roles in achieving the international community’s real acceptance of North Korea and a final solution of this nuclear issue.

Under this agreed principle, it would then be necessary for the two to understand the other’s difficulties. Misunderstanding and disbelief between China and the United States, whether shown through China’s opposition against THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] or America’s criticism on China’s unsatisfying sanctions, is a major obstacle of solving the issue in collaboration. For the United States, years of fruitless negotiation damaged the whole nation’s patience, and making no compromise has become political correctness in the U.S. Congress. Also, hard-line policies towards North Korea reassure allies, not just South Korea, that the United States can and will protect them. But China, due to geopolitical concerns and the memory of the Sino-Soviet split, sees no benefit from turning its relationship with North Korea from current superficial friendship into total rivalry; thus it cannot go too far on pressuring its neighbor. Besides, America’s military is still China’s one big worry regarding its own security. So, considering their dissimilar situations but the same goal as peace and security, China and the United States should clarify their own red lines and adjust behaviors on dealing with North Korea to avoid harming the other’s interests.

U.S.-China teamwork is important to solving this problem. For the North Korean nuclear issue, sanction and deterrence policies have proved ineffective, and coming back to dialogue is needed. The United States, although taking a tough stance, has to show willingness for dialogue first; following the United State’s signal, China shall make use of its accesses to North Korea leaderships to pursue a stop to the aggressive missile and nuclear tests and bring it back to the negotiating table (rather than only making diplomatic statements). China can make great contributions to smooth the negotiation by participating in some sensitive and controversial problems: for example, IAEA’s monitoring and verification in North Korea and ensuring all related parties fulfill their assignments in the “action to action” transition. At the same time, the United States needs to make efforts to normalize the relations with North Korea and eliminate the North-South struggle to ease North Korea’s “jungle survival” narrative. Through joint actions, the United States and China have the possibility to bring North Korea into the international community and bring stability back to the Korean Peninsula.

There are always long ways to go to solve complex and intense regional struggles, such as North Korean nuclear issue. But to protect the harmony of global community in the age when the world is largely linked, and danger and crises are so easy to spread, it is critical for the United States and China to work them out together. The United States and China hold significant but not unlimited influence in global affairs, and two countries’ overseas interests are expanding and interwoven, so rash unilateral actions not only are helpless on addressing issues but raise U.S.-China misunderstanding and confrontation. So here is the way the United States and China should better work together on regional issues: the basic consensus on the root of issues provides the fundamental for bilateral cooperation; mutual understanding along with compromise leads to acceptable and practical solutions; then by using their complementary advantages, the United States and China together can shoulder the responsibility to promote issues to positive directions. I believe that unstable regions can increasingly come to harmony under the combined efforts of the United States and China, and the peace and security of the global community will be greatly strengthened.

Chenyu Wu is a junior at the University of International Relations in Beijing, majoring in international politics.