China's caution towards North Korea

China says it is like 'lips and teeth' with Pyongyang

By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC correspondent in Beijing

Many are looking to North Korea's oldest and closest ally, China, to help find a way out of the nuclear impasse between Pyongyang and the United States.

In the early 1950s, hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers died fighting on the Northern side in the Korean war.

For decades China has described its relationship with Pyongyang as extremely close - like lips and teeth, according to Beijing.

So where does China stand today, and what can it do to defuse this latest Korean crisis?

Tied by history

"Gallantly, we are crossing the Yalu river to defend peace and guard our country "let us unite to defeat the vicious American wolves" - the rousing words of China's best-known Korean war song sound a little out of date in today's China of mobile phones and American fast food restaurants.

The terrible loses sustained by China have left it with an abiding horror of conflict on the Korean peninsula

Fifty years on, China has never admitted how many casualties it took defending North Korea.

But it is thought that as many as 800,000 Chinese soldiers were killed in the three years from 1950 to 1953.

According to Professor Han Zhenshe, one of China's foremost Korea experts, the terrible loses sustained by China have left it with an abiding horror of conflict on the Korean peninsula:

"For us, the most important thing about the current nuclear standoff is that it must be resolved peacefully, through dialogue - we don't want to see a resort to force, to military action," he said.

China's fear

The wind blowing across the Yalu River today is every bit as cold as it was when the Chinese soldiers went south in 1950.

But today, on the other side of the ice-locked river, starvation and economic collapse are pushing thousands to flee north into China.

In a safe house close to the border, I am taken to meet with a group of North Korean refugees who fled their homes.

China fears a mass influx of starving North Koreans

Each has a tale of terrible suffering. One man has escaped from a labour camp; others are fleeing starvation.

At the moment, refugees like these are a trickle. But if the situation in North Korea gets worse, the trickle could soon turn to a flood.

It is something David Finkelstein of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington said China is desperate to avoid.

"A North Korea that collapses quickly is a nightmare scenario for Beijing, which is why Beijing provides what material support it does, to keep North Korea on an I.V., so to speak, to keep the patient alive so that it doesn't collapse economically, and the economic fallout of refugees spill over into China's ethnically Korean border provinces."

No one in China is suggesting that America is to blame for this current nuclear standoff.

'Pyongyang scared'

But there is a feeling here that America, with its hostile rhetoric of the axis of evil, is driving North Korea further and further into a corner.

Professor Han Zhenshe said the North Koreans are scared:

China's fear of a North Korean collapse means (its) levers will never be used

"They're definitely scared... America has stopped supplying oil to North Korea, so they have virtually no electricity. The situation is getting desperate. The people are freezing. America uses words like axis of evil - that really makes the North Korean leadership fearful."

Mr Han said North Korea's real aim in restarting its nuclear program is not to build a bomb, but to get the US to come to the negotiating table, and to promise that it will not attack North Korea.

If that is so, then it is a dangerous game the North Koreans are playing, one that David Finkelstein warned could spiral out of control.

Influence untested

"The Chinese could give some very solid advice to the regime in North Korea - not to overplay the hand they have chosen to deal to the world; that there may be more constructive ways for Pyongyang to get the attention of those whom it is desiring to engage."

That is maybe exactly what the Chinese are doing.

But those who think China holds the key to solving this current crisis are likely to be disappointed.

As North Korea's largest donor of food and fuel, China controls the levers that could force Pyongyang to back down.

But China's fear of a North Korean collapse means those levers will never be used.