PEKING INFLUENCE IN THE NUCLEAR CRISIS ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA

To ensure its own national security and gain greater influence, Peking (Beijing) has always had strong desire to influence the affairs of the Korean Peninsula. After the end of the Cold War, it hoped for further easing of tensions and increased stability on the peninsula to facilitate its own economic development. Obviously, the outbreak of the North Korean nuclear crisis threatened the realization of a stable Korean Peninsula. Peking has thus shown strong desire to play a role in solving the crisis. Unlike Japan, the United States, and other Western countries, Peking's objectives are not merely the resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It also wants to ensure the survival of the Pyongyang regime. To exert influence during the crisis, it has openly opposed the imposition of any international sanctions on North Korea and has tried hard to persuade, through both official and unofficial diplomatic channels, the United States and the two Koreas to substitute dialogue for confrontation. So far, the North Korean nuclear crisis has developed in accordance with Peking's wishes. North Korea has agreed to hold summits with South Korea and freeze its nuclear arms development program. This indicates that Peking has a decisive influence in the nuclear crisis situation, though it has less influence on Pyongyang than it had in the 1950s and 1960s.