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Beijing: Threats and incentives from China helped entice North Korea back to international talks on its nuclear program but Pyongyang is no pawn of its powerful neighbor and long-time ally, analysts said Thursday. China, the major source of aid and trade for impoverished North Korea, has been praised by the United States and Russia for its role in convincing Pyongyang to return to the six-nation talks.
Following a year-long boycott of the negotiations and after conducting its first atomic test on October 9, North Korea confirmed Wednesday that it would return to the six-nation forum.
China brokered seven hours of secret talks in Beijing on Tuesday between the US and North Korean envoys that led to the breakthrough.
China hosts the six-nation talks, which began in 2003 with the intention of convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear goals. The forum brings together North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
Analysts said China's influence this week over Kim Jong-Il's regime also extended to Beijing raising such issues as deliveries of vital oil, food and other supplies, as well as the flow of money across their borders.
China decided to take its toughest line yet against North Korea because it had become increasingly exasperated at its ally destabilizing the region, first by a series of missile tests in July and then with the atomic test.
An angry message from President Hu Jintao to Kim was likely personally delivered when Chinese envoy Tang Jiaxuan traveled to Pyongyang on October 19.
“North Korea has really upset China this time and presumably Tang Jiaxuan's visit sent a strong message,” said Yuan Jing-dong, political scientist at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
“I think probably a combination of (Chinese) threats and incentives” convinced North Korea to return to the six-party talks, he added.
Yuan said North Korea was acting carefully to ensure it retained the allegiance of China, which has worked unusually closely with the United States in recent weeks in trying to ease the tensions on the Korean peninsula.
“North Korea still needs China, so restoring some 'face' for Beijing is a price Pyongyang is willing to pay,” he said.
“Continuing to act in a defiant manner entails more costs — returning to the talks at least would ease the situation a bit without actually giving up much.”
Alexandre Mansourov, a political scientist at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, agreed that North Korea had not simply buckled under Chinese pressure to return to the negotiating table.
“This move will buy the North Koreans some more time to continue their work on fixing and improving the design of their nuclear device, while allowing them to get the Chinese off their back for a few months,” Mansourov said.
“Kim Jong-Il… is a strategic player. He is not China's pawn. I do not believe he will ever give up his country's newly gained nuclear weapon state status.”
Others also believed Pyongyang was trying to improve its bargaining position.
“North Korea is responding in part to Chinese pressure… and in part because it intended to return to the negotiations all along,” said John Feffer at the International Relations Center in the United States.
Marcus Noland of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics said: “Having done a test, they can return to the table in a stronger negotiating position.”
North Korea is also aware that China is reluctant to slap harsh sanctions on it for fear of weakening its faltering economy and seeing a flood of refugees rushing across the border, analysts said.
