Posted by Zhu Feng on June 17, 2009. Filed under China, North Korea, Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The raging global response to North Korea’s nuclear gambit is creating an unexpected side effect in China. It is sparking a great amount of debate in the media on how to understand North Korea’s many provocations—by nuclear test, missile launch and military intimidation. Nowadays, Chinese appears greatly divided on how to look at their difficult neighbor. Unsurprisingly, this “nuclear North Korea fever” has brought about strong sales in for Korea War-related writings and books. The War, which began nearly 60 years ago, has now back as a hot topic in China in a very unanticipated way.

The website of Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao), one of the most popular dailies in China specifically focusing on world news, began this June an online investigation of Chinese views of North Korea’s rampant provocative behaviors. The response is very revealing: nearly 75 percent of respondents argue that a nuclear North Korea totally undermines Chinese security and national interests. Meanwhile, only 15 percent respond that the situation in North Korea is favorable to China. The rest of the respondents reply that they are “unclear” of their views (see the survey results here).

In 2005, I did a similar research project about Chinese elite perceptions of a nuclear North Korea. The outcome of this survey—almost 5 years ago – showed that only 61 percent of respondents believed that nuclearization of Korea Peninsula would be detrimental to China. Thirty-five percent of Chinese respondents said that North Korean efforts at obtaining nuclear weapons were only aimed at the United States and Japan. Now, five years later, the 2009 survey is more encouraging. Though the two polls’ methodology differed, in combination with significant anecdotal evidence described below, there are strong indications of a not inconsequential rise in opposition to North Korea’s nuclear program and increase in Chinese fatigue with North Korea’s endless trouble-making.

Other indicators all strongly signal a substantial shift in Chinese views of North Korea and its provocative behaviors. Every time you click on any Chinese news link on North Korea and check the “comment” area, you find many comments left by an enormous number of readers. The comments are very contentious and diverse. But the majority of comments are fighting about the reason why Kim Jong Il is a “bad guy,” and how China should gauge the impact of a nuclear North Korea on China and its security, as well as on stability and prosperity in East Asia. Of course, they list many varied reasons. For example, many Chinese people think that Pyongyang is completely unreliable.  There are many historical roots for this—many pro-China cadres of the North Korean Workers’ Party were cruelly purged and killed at the end of the 1950s; even through Cold War history, North Korea and Kim Il-Sung followed a pro-Soviet line and intended to sideline China’s influence. Moreover, many comments argue that North Korean historic textbooks do a disservice to China by mentioning little of Chinese volunteer troops’ contribution to saving North Korea from defeat by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur and his United Nations troops. These historic arguments are very often used as evidence of how North Korea has not reciprocated China’s trust and backing.

Of course, some comments remain true to the tradition of close friendship between the North and China. These people imagine North Korea as a strategic weight vis-à-vis the United States and Japan, and long for Pyongyang to remain a buffer to a U.S. military presence throughout the Korea Peninsula. The worst posts call for North Korea’s so-called “insurmountable spirit” to continue to confront the powerful United States and Japan. But such defense of a collapsing dictatorship runs increasingly hollow, and this view is genuinely losing ground. Many comments oppose this perspective and rebuke these arguments points as “old hat,” equivalent to the residual mourning of the passing of Maoist China.

However, these lonely voices adoring North Korea for its provocation are the last threads of support for Kim Jong-Il’s despotic rule. Considering the relatively short time span China has experienced since reform and opening-up three decades ago, that a small amount of people think the “old way” is not strange. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Chinese people have abandoned Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea is an amazing indication of China’s growing pluralism and its increasing passion to shoulder “expectable responsibility” in the international arena. I don’t know yet how much policy impact the opinion pool will generate, but what is certain here is that I don’t see a difference of opinion between Chinese leadership and the majority of Chinese people. The notable difference is to what extent Chinese leadership is able to firmly and loudly speak up, as their people do, against North Korea’s mischief.