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Pulling the Plug: Can There Be a Deal with China on Korean Unification?

North Korea is a failed state waiting to happen. It imposes horrific privations on its own citizens as well as serious security threats on its neighbors and the United States. For twenty years, South Korea, the United States, and China negotiated with North Korea in hopes of inducing it to abandon its nuclear weapons program, reconcile with South Korea, and reform its economy. These negotiations failed to achieve their objectives and have been largely abandoned. North Korea is now a proud nuclear weapons state, defying both its adversaries to the south and its Chinese patrons to the north. Its young new leader, Kim Jong-un, shows no sign of undertaking economic reforms or opening to the south. In response, South Korea and the United States have formally adopted the goal of unification, and have seemingly hunkered down to await a North Korean collapse. Unification, however, is not going to happen unless China wants it to, and right now, Beijing does not. For China, unification is a mixed bag. It would solve the nuclear issue as well as the refugee problem posed by desperate North Koreans seeking to escape to or through China, and bring long-term economic benefits from having a more prosperous neighbor than the bankrupt DPRK. However, it comes with two major drawbacks. The first is that if unification is preceded by the outright collapse of North Korea, there could be a contagion effect within China, generating political mobilization against the regime.