Seoul-Beijing summit highlights N.K. isolation

President Park Geun-hye’s trip to China this week further underscored Pyongyang’s deepening isolation and estrangement from Beijing, drawing keen attention to how the communist regime would seek to address its diplomatic impasse.

Park and her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a summit for the sixth time Wednesday with a focus on joint efforts to address North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and provocations, reaffirming prolonged diplomatic tensions between Beijing and its traditional ally, Pyongyang.

The reclusive state sent Choe Ryong-hae, a secretary of its ruling Workers’ Party, to attend China’s World War II victory ceremony Thursday. Yet, Choe’s visit only highlighted the current status of the relationship between the two allies, which they used to tout as being “forged in blood,” observers noted.

After recent moves by Washington to normalize its ties with Tehran and Havana, Pyongyang’s isolation has been further magnified, which experts say might have put more pressure on the North to seek improved ties with the outside world, particularly its southern neighbor.

Last month, Pyongyang offered Seoul a rare expression of regret over the Aug. 4 land mine blast in the DMZ, and agreed to hold government-level talks to address cross-border relations and to arrange the reunions of separated families.

These moves were seen as a strategic decision by the North to break its isolation, which analysts say could, otherwise, damage Kim’s legitimacy as a competent ruler when Kim’s drive to shore up the economy has yet to yield any significant progress.

“Pyongyang’s moves to disentangle relations with Seoul are in connection with its efforts to escape from its current isolation. Should it not improve relations with the South, it would be difficult for the North to normalize ties with the U.S. and Japan as well,” said Koh Yoo-hwan, North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University.

“The North’s current relationship with China isn’t good enough for Kim to travel to Beijing to celebrate the victory event with a smile on his face. But I think after the event, Pyongyang would likely move to improve relations with China, its most important economic partner.”

Park’s sixth summit with Xi underlined the increasingly closer bilateral relationship, in stark contrast to the absence of any summit between Xi and Kim of North Korea.

Apparently expressing its discomfort over their summit, the North’s powerful National Defense Commission issued a statement saying that the South should refrain from “words and actions” that could dampen the mood for improving cross-border relations.

The deterioration in relations between Beijing and Pyongyang appears to have been caused by a series of North Korea’s provocative acts that it pushed ahead despite Beijing’s admonitions.

Since Xi was elected as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee in November 2012, the North has conducted a third nuclear test, tested ballistic missiles and engaged in other provocative actions, pushing the limit of his patience, analysts said.

With the international community pressuring China to play a role as a “responsible stakeholder” in regional security, Beijing has, in recent years, been seen taking a tough stance over North Korea’s actions to destabilize the region.

Any instability stemming from North Korea’s provocations could impede Beijing’s efforts to address domestic issues including income disparity, regional development gaps and political corruption, among others. China’s massive campaign to link it with the world through railroads and ship routes could also be hampered by Pyongyang’s destabilizing activities, observers noted.

Above all, the most effective way for the North to address its isolation is to improve inter-Korean relations, analysts said. But they noted that the North might continue a somewhat hostile stance toward the South until after Oct. 10, the 70th anniversary of the founding of its ruling party.

“At least until Oct. 10, the North could continue to focus on strengthening national unity under its signature national mottos of self-reliance and dignity, and under the military-first principle,” said Chang Yong-seok, a senior analyst at Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification.

“Yet, the North might continue to agonize over the way forward ... the way for it to lift itself out of its diplomatic and economic backwater. This could raise the prospect of the North pushing for dialogue with the outside world.”

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)