The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [137]
CHINA CHANGES COURSE
The Chinese foreign minister left Pyongyang several days before the end of my own week-long trip, but the change in the relationship of the two Koreas to its giant neighbor continued to be a subject of immense importance on both sides of the thirty-eighth parallel. And in the early 1990s, those relationships, like others involving the outside powers, were in flux. For China, the challenge was to adjust its relations from one-sided support of the North Korean ally to productive ties with both South and North. It was of great importance to Beijing to do so without suffering a precipitous loss of influence with Pyongyang, as had been the case with the Soviet Union. This required diplomatic adroitness and careful handling, of which China is a master.
As late as January 1979, senior leader Deng Xiaoping told President Carter that North Korea "trusts China" and that "we cannot have contact with the South, or it will weaken that trust." Ironically, Deng's own reformist policies of pragmatism and emphasis on market economic forces made it imperative for China to amend its onesided policy of ignoring the South.
China and South Korea, situated across the Yellow Sea from one another and with complementary and increasingly vibrant economies, proved to be natural trading partners. Beginning with indirect commerce through Hong Kong and other places, Sino-ROK trade leaped from $19 million in 1979, to $188 million in 1980, to $462 million in 1984, to $1.3 billion in 1986, to $3.1 billion in 1988. Chinese trade with North Korea was left far behind, stagnating at about $.5 billion in the late 1980s, much of it heavily subsidized by China. Although other aspects played their roles, this natural economic affinity with South Korea was of fundamental importance in overcoming Beijing's inhibitions about dealings with Seoul. Party elders and aged former generals could reminisce about their exploits with North Korea in bygone times, but South Korea loomed much larger for officials dealing with the economy.
In March 1988, with the ROK trade boom well under way, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party set up an "economic team in relation to South Korea" with the mission of promoting economic relations. This unannounced decision proved to be the mechanism for implementing important changes. Although strategic and ideological factors had previously been the central considerations of China's Korea policy, the economic working party, headed by a deputy prime minister, made most of the day-to-day decisions regarding South Korea until the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Like so much else that happens on the Korean peninsula, the first crack in the political firewall between Beijing and Seoul had emerged from a violent incident-the hijacking in May 1983 of a Chinese airliner by six Chinese, who shot and wounded two crew members and forced the pilot to fly to South Korea. China sent a thirty-three-member official delegation to Seoul, where the two nations smoothly negotiated a deal for the return of the plane, its passengers, and its crew.
North Korea was quick to protest to China about this first official contact between Beijing and the Seoul government. Chinese officials responded that this was a special case and renewed the pledge that they would not depart from "China's firm stance" against ties with the South.
In March 1985, in another violent incident, two mutinous seamen opened fire with AK-47s aboard a Chinese navy torpedo boat in the Yellow Sea, killing the captain and five other crewmen. As the vessel ran out of fuel and drifted helplessly at sea, a South Korean fishing boat towed it to a nearby South Korean port. China sent three warships steaming into Korean territorial waters in search of the missing torpedo boat, and ROK air, naval, and coast guard forces were mobilized. In an atmosphere of impending crisis, Seoul CIA station chief James Delaney and Ambassador Richard Walker urgently