Constraining Unipolarity } 539
of Southeast Asia. China’s diplomacy had also helped end the civil war in
Cambodia that had threatened to destabilize China’s southern frontier and
hinder the flow of Southeast Asian investment and trade to China. Beijing
had dislodged the Soviet Union from China’s southern borders. Regarding
Washington, Beijing had demonstrated at a critical juncture that China had
substantial influence and was quite willing to use this influence in parallel
with US efforts when matters could be arranged properly via PRC-US dis-
cussions and agreement. Beijing also freed itself from association with the
odious Khmer Rouge.
Regarding North Korea, that country’s nuclear weapons program broke
into the open in early 1993, when Pyongyang began moving toward extrac-
tion of plutonium-rich spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor.^26 Extraction
of that plutonium via chemical reprocessing would yield fissile material suit-
able for making atomic bombs. In March, Pyongyang declared its withdrawal
from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Over the next eighteen
months, the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program would take the United
States to the brink of war with Pyongyang.
To understand China’s handling of the 1993–1994 North Korean nuclear
crisis, it is necessary to situate it in the broader context of China and the
NPT regime. The NPT regime was a major element of the US-designed
post–World War II international system, and securing the PRC’s full par-
ticipation in and adherence to that regime was a high-ranking US objective
throughout the post-1972 period. China had begun moving toward partici-
pation in the NPT regime in 1984, when it joined the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) and began putting its civilian nuclear activities
under the supervision of that agency. The decisive step came on March 9,
1992 (while George H. W. Bush was still president), when China signed the
NPT. China’s signature of the NPT represented realization of a long-standing
US policy objective and a significant step forward in PRC cooperation with
the United States. In October 1993, however, a Chinese underground test of a
small nuclear weapon broke an unofficial moratorium on nuclear testing and
warned Washington that China could turn away from increased cooperation
with the United States over nuclear nonproliferation.^27 The North Korean
nuclear issue was thus a test (at least in American eyes) of Beijing’s sincerity
as a new and full member of the NPT. Would it work to hold Pyongyang to
its NPT obligations, or would it connive at North Korea’s efforts to build nu-
clear weapons?
As information emerged in February 1993 about Pyongyang’s preparations
to remove the plutonium-rich fuel rods, the IAEA Board of Governors began
considering a resolution calling on North Korea to cooperate with the IAEA
and meet its NPT obligations. China was a member of that board, which
operates on the basis of consensus. This meant China had the power to block
or facilitate the resolution. Beijing chose the latter course, agreeing to the