Triple-pronged engagement: China's approach to North Korea

For U.S. policymakers, the question of China's approach to North Korea is critical, because whether Washington likes it or not, the road to Pyongyang now leads through Beijing. Seoul, too, is looking to Beijing to handle Pyongyang. But South Korean anxieties over China's intentions and American reliance on Beijing's "leverage" obscure a clear picture of China's actual approach to North Korea. When considered with the cold eyes of foreign policy realism, China's approach reveals itself to be "neighborly engagement" based on three prongs: bilateral political ties, bilateral economic cooperation, and multilateral diplomatic engagement (the Six Party Talks). That is the reality with which U.S. and South Korean strategists have to work.