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China's Intentions in the DPRK: South Korea Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Timothy Savage
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Recent reports of Kim Jong-il's death may have been, to quote Mark Twain, “greatly exaggerated,” but they did reveal a great deal about South Korean thinking regarding the future of North Korea. Anonymous officials leaked information that the government was looking at operationalizing ConPlan 5029, the contingency plan for joint US-South Korean intervention in the North that had been suspended under the previous administration. Given the lack of any signs of unrest in Pyongyang, the urgency of such planning was questioned by critics.1 But it reflects an ongoing concern that has been building in South Korea over the years: that if North Korea ever does collapse, the opportunity to determine the future of the peninsula may not fall to South Korea, but rather to China.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 12 , December 2008 , e18
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

References

Notes

1 “Chung Se-hyun: Stop Mentioning Contingency and Gain DPRK People's Support!” Pressian, Sept. 16, 2008 (in Korean).

2 Shirong Chen, “China Acts in Water Dispute Row,” BBC News, Oct. 17, 2008.

3 “Northeast Asia's Undercurrents of Conflict,” International Crisis Group, Dec. 15, 2005, pp. 6-7.

4 Bonnie Glaser, Scott Snyder, and John S. Park, “Keeping an Eye on an Unruly Neighbor: Chinese Views of Economic Reform and Stability in North Korea,” United States Institute of Peace Working Paper, Jan. 3, 2008.

5 “North East Asia's Undercurrents of Conflict,” op. cit., p. 7.

6 Yoon Won-sup, “Lee Fears Pro-China Regime in NK,” Korea Times, Nov. 12, 2004.

7 “Korea Backgrounder: How the South Views Its Brother from Another Planet,” International Crisis Group Asia Report #89, Dec. 14, 2004.

8 Glaser et al., op. cit., p. 20.