Page 217 - Trilateral Korea Japan U.S. Cooperation

This problem is exacerbated by American recognition that
China does maintain substantial leverage on North Korea as
its primary supplier and economic lifeline. However, China
may China may perceive most of its leverage as unusable
in light of the risk that using it may generate unintended
outcomes that China perceives as adverse to its own national
security interests. For instance, China may be able to cut off
economic flows to North Korea, but worries that starvation,
refugee flow, and regime collapse scenarios will generate
for China even bigger problems that it does not want to
precipitate and that it does not want to own. The bottom line
is that Sino-U.S. rivalry takes North Korea off the table as an
issue for cooperation between China and the United States
and raises the likelihood that China will pursue cooperation
with North Korea without regard for the United States.
In addition, that rivalry increases the likelihood that U.S.
policymakers will subordinate North Korea policy goals to
China policy and try to hold China responsible for any failure
to restrain North Korea from destabilizing behaviors.

The North Korea-Russia Relationship and the Prospects
for Bipolar Bloc Confrontation

A third major geostrategic development relevant to the
development of China-North Korea relations as well as
prospects for the emergence of a China-North Korea-
Russia bloc in opposition to a U.S.-Japan-South Korea
bloc in Northeast Asia is the dramatic expansion of North
Korea-Russia relations over the course of the past year. The
immediate drivers for the elevation of relations between

Chapter Thirteen : South Korea-Japan-US Cooperation: How to Deter North Korea and Convince China 217