An emboldened North Korea is a threat to the region

OPINION:

North Korea had three successful intercontinental ballistic missile tests in 2023. The most recent was a solid-fuel road-mobile ICBM with an assessed range of 15,000 kilometers (more than 9,320 miles), capable of targeting the entire U.S.

And in early January, North Korea tested a solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 kilometers (over 3,100 miles), capable of targeting Guam, in addition to last week’s test of an underwater nuclear weapon.

Indeed, in the past two years, North Korea has launched more than 100 ballistic missiles, including hypersonic, short- and intermediate-range missiles, cruise missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Its last nuclear test was in September 2017 of a reported thermonuclear weapon (hydrogen bomb). A seventh nuclear test has been imminent for the past year.

On Jan. 5, North Korea fired over 200 artillery shells in waters adjacent to South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, where in 2010, North Korea killed four South Koreans and injured 19 after it torpedoed a South Korean corvette that killed 46 seamen.

This escalation coincided with reported pronouncements from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that South Korea is the North’s principal enemy and no longer the “partner of reconciliation and reunification, but instead an enemy that must be subjugated, if necessary, through a nuclear war.”

Last year, Mr. Kim said nuclear weapons would be enshrined in his nation’s constitution. Previously, he announced that North Korea’s nuclear doctrine changed from nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the preemptive first use of nuclear weapons in the event of an imminent attack against its leadership or command and control infrastructure.

The spate of missile launches and bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang coincides with a public warming of relations with Russia. This past Sept. 13, Mr. Kim met with Vladimir Putin in Russia’s Far East, and in October, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Pyongyang for meetings with Mr. Kim.

Last month, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui visited Moscow for meetings with Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov, with an announcement that Mr. Putin would visit North Korea in the near future. Undoubtedly, discussions also dealt with the ballistic missiles and other weapons North Korea is providing to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

It’s also likely that discussions dealt with the nuclear and missile assistance Russia will provide to North Korea. On Nov. 21, North Korea successfully placed its first reconnaissance satellite in orbit, most likely with the assistance of Russia. Mr. Kim recently proclaimed that North Korea would put three new military reconnaissance satellites into orbit in 2024, probably with Russian assistance.

The former Soviet Union has a long history of nuclear and missile assistance to North Korea. It abruptly ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This relationship, starting with the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, is being reconstructed, with North Korea assisting Russia with weapons for its war in Ukraine and Russia apparently prepared to provide North Korea with nuclear and ballistic missile assistance — all in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

On Oct. 3, 2002, then-Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly went to Pyongyang. After meeting with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, he said North Korea had a secret program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, violating signed agreements with the U.S. — the Agreed Framework — and the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement and the Joint North-South Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

On the second day of Mr. Kelly’s visit, Kang Sok Ju, North Korea’s first deputy foreign minister at the time, told Mr. Kelly that North Korea was entitled to have nuclear weapons to safeguard its security.

President George W. Bush, in his memoir “Decision Points,” documents his conversation in October 2002 with Chinese then-President Jiang Zemin at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and in January 2003, telling Jiang that he was concerned about an arms race if North Korea persists with its nuclear weapons program.

Then, in February 2003, Mr. Bush said: “I went one step further. I told President Jiang that if we could not solve the problem diplomatically, I would have to consider a military strike against North Korea. The first meeting of the Six-Party Talks took place six months later in Beijing.” And “in September 2005, our patience was rewarded. The North Koreans agreed to abandon all nuclear weapons and return to their commitments under the NPT.”

The Six-Party Talks ended abruptly in 2009 when North Korea refused to permit U.N. nuclear monitors to leave the Yongbyon nuclear center to inspect undeclared suspect nuclear sites in North Korea. Those suspected nuclear sites were the highly enriched uranium sites for nuclear weapons.

Jiang was key to getting North Korea to join the Six-Party Talks (China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and North Korea) for the first meeting in August 2003. Chinese then-President Hu Jintao was instrumental in getting North Korea, after missile launches in July 2006 and its first nuclear test in October 2006, to return to negotiations in 2007 and commence with the dismantlement of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

China helped facilitate the talks with North Korea in 2003 and 2006 because China also knew that North Korea with nuclear weapons would not only incite an arms race in the region but would also bring instability to the Korean Peninsula and all of Northeast Asia.

The Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty between China and North Korea, signed in July 1961, was renewed in 2021 for 20 years between Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It commits China to come to the aid of North Korea in times of conflict. Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said on March 22, 2021, that “Xi Jinping is willing to work with North Korea and other related parties to uphold the political settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue and preserve peace and stability on the peninsula, so as to make new contributions to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.”

In addition to this defense treaty, China provides North Korea with over 90% of its crude oil imports and over 90% of its trade, in addition to significant amounts of food aid. Clearly, China has significant leverage over North Korea.

Given recent developments, the potential for conflict on the Korean Peninsula is high. This is the time for China to act, and this the issue on which it should act. China needs to convince North Korea that further escalation of tension with South Korea could lead to conflict and war on the Korean Peninsula, with dire consequences for the two Koreas and the region.

• Joseph R. DeTrani served as special envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 and as director of the National Counterproliferation Center. The views expressed here are the author’s and not those of any government agency or department.