중러 전략적 협력과 한반도 평화체제

초록

In New Year messages for 2018, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin emphasized that the Sino-Russian strategic partnership reached an all-time high. The United States has been the driving force behind this continuing partnership. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the existence of the nation was threatened and Russia has been enraged at America’s betrayal. Also, facing continuous threat from America that declared ‘the end of history’ and attempted to effect a political transformation of the Chinese socialist system by peaceful means(‘Hepingyanbian’), China set its supreme task as the security of its system. With this background, a bond of sympathy and the strategic partnership between China and Russia should be a natural consequence. In particular, the unexpected election of Donald Trump and his ‘America First’ policy urge closer cooperation between them again. Thus the incentives for strategic cooperation between the two countries remain solid, but as shown by the history of conflicts between them, there still are barriers to this cooperation: long-standing mutual mistrust, discrepancies in policies toward the US, possible clashes between Putin’s ‘Strong Russia Policy’ and Xi’s ‘The Dream of a Strong Military’ and conflicts in Eurasia. Meanwhile, the Korean Peninsula issue can be both the incentive for and limitation on the Sino-Russian strategic partnership. Particularly, the two countries share the strong sense of ownership in discussion on ‘peace and war’ on the Korean Peninsula. This is the reason why we should give positive consideration to the correlation between ensuring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the Sino-Russian strategic partnership. First of all, the positive aspect of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership would be the following: resolving North Korea’s international isolation and its unstable regime, pursuing the peace agreement between North Korea and the US, preventing Japan from taking advantage of the North Korean nuclear problem, a common countermeasure to UN’s excessive sanctions on North Korea. This would be the result of their consensus that they are responsible for North Korea’s global isolation along with political unrest, and their common goal of keeping the US and Japan in check. This strategic consensus between China and Russia would positively affect creating a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula in the sense that it tries to ease heightened military tensions and promotes dialogues between North Korea and the US, and North and South Korea. On the other hand, the potential risk factors of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership has would be the following: difference of opinion over the strategic value of the Korean Peninsula, China’s interfering the progress in the relationship between Russia desiring to restore its influence over DPRK and North Korea trying to strike a balance between China and Russia, the expansion of economic cooperation among North-South Korea and Russia and China’s waning influence over North Korea due to the promotion of ‘Northern Economic Cooperation’ of Korean government, recent Russian moves to strengthen its influence over North Korea. All these combined together may adversely affect peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. All in all, the Sino-Russian strategic partnership is a double edged sword which bears incentives to continue cooperation and potential sources of conflict as well. Therefore the actual result of the partnership would vary according to the dynamics of the relationships among the US, China and Russia. In this regard, more diplomatic wisdom of the Korean Government will be required to benefit from the Sino-Russian strategic partnership and prevent its negative consequences.

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