BEIJING — The presidents of South Korea and China are holding their first summit since Kim Jong Il's death opened the chance for major changes in North Korea, where Seoul and Beijing share vital interests as well as strong disagreements.
While North Korea is often a topic when Chinese and South Korean leaders meet, the death of its leader last month has pushed it to the center of the summit, which had been intended to focus on mending frayed relations over Chinese fishing-fleet incursions in South Korean waters and Beijing’s support for Pyongyang.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak arrived for the three-day visit Monday. After a pomp-filled formal welcome later Monday, Lee was to hold extensive talks with President Hu Jintao. He also is scheduled to meet with China’s premier and the head of the legislature.
Beijing is expected to offer to open talks on a three-way free-trade agreement with Japan, Chinese state media reported, highlighting the robust economic ties China and South Korea share in contrast with the strains on other fronts.
The presidents are expected to emphasize their shared interest in the stability of poor but nuclear-armed North Korea, as their neighbor makes an uncertain transition to rule by Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong Un, and a coterie of his father’s advisers.
"Peace and stability on the Korean peninsula serve the common interests of all parties," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said about the Lee-Hu summit at a daily media briefing. The sentiment is echoed in a nearly identical statement from the Blue House in Seoul.
Beyond that, however, priorities diverge. China dislikes even talking in detail about its North Korea ally with other countries, seeing it as an invitation to meddling.
"The Chinese will offer little information about North Korea and will only ask that everyone else leave North Korea alone and manage their shaky power transition," said Victor Cha, a Korea expert and former National Security Council official in the administration of President George W. Bush.
Differences between Beijing and Seoul were on display soon after Kim Jong Il’s death. The Chinese leadership team immediately sent messages of support to the younger Kim, and Hu and other top leaders paid condolence visits to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. South Korea’s Lee put his military on high alert, and while expressing a wish for better relations he vowed a stern reaction to any provocation.
While Beijing, which already accounts for the bulk of North Korea’s trade and investment, wants to see an acceleration of economic reforms, it also wants to ensure that Pyongyang’s current rulers remain in power. A North Korean meltdown, in Beijing’s eyes, would send refugees into China and pave the way for a unified Korea under Seoul, with its strong alliance to the U.S.
Seoul, meanwhile, would like to see North Korea retreat from its near constant war footing. It worries that in the short run, the new leadership around the younger Kim might provoke a crisis with South Korea to rally support among the public and political elite.
"Certainly Lee hopes China will exert a strong influence on North Korea and Kim Jong Un and guide it to a path of de-nuclearization and reform and opening. But I doubt how much China can do in this regard," Zhang Liangui, a veteran Korea watcher at the Central Party School, said in an interview published Monday in the state-run Global Times newspaper.
One long-term shared interest has been coaxing North Korea to relinquish its nuclear weapons programs. But in Beijing’s desire to maintain North Korea as a buffer state and see its new leadership ensconced, analysts suspect it may now be placing a lower priority on resuming disarmament talks.
Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, the United States and Russia, have been stalled since 2009.
Cha, the former U.S. official and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Beijing may be concerned that outside pressure on North Korea over nuclear arms could set off infighting between groups for or against reforms.
"Early interaction could destabilize things internally if there are competing factions," said Cha in an email. "No one knows of course but Beijing does not seem to be expressing the same enthusiasm for diplomacy now."
