To condone,condemn,or ‘no comment’? Explaining a patron’s reaction to a client’s unilateral provocations

Abstract

What explains a patron’s decision to publicly condone, condemn, or forgo commenting on its client’s unilateral provocations? We present a new theoretical framework that identifies a patron’s two strategic considerations – maximizing its sphere of influence and avoiding entanglement – and factors that affect them. We claim that whenever a patron faces a great power rivalry or a vulnerable client, it is more likely to condone its client’s provocations in order to safeguard its sphere of influence. On the other hand, when the risk of escalation looms large, the patron is more likely to condemn its client’s provocations in order to avoid entanglement. Focusing on the Sino-North Korean patron–client relationship, we test our theory on an original dataset that tracks China’s official reactions to provocations initiated by North Korea. We find that China tends to condone North Korea’s provocations when the USA criticizes them, and refrains from condemning when North Korea is domestically fragile. We also find that China is more likely to condemn its client’s provocations in the period after North Korea became a nuclear state. In addition, we draw on examples from the USA–Pakistan and the USA–Israel patron–client relationships to illustrate our causal logic. This article offers new insights on how a patron manages its client’s unruly behavior, and provides the first large-N evidence on China’s responses to North Korean provocations from 1981 to 2016.

Keywords

alliance management alliances China military provocation North Korea patron-client relationships

Introduction

In asymmetric power relations in which a more powerful patron state provides security to a less powerful client state in return for reduced autonomy (Morrow, 1991), security interests of the two states do not always converge. A patron tends to see regional issues through the lens of a global balance of power due to its strategic position in the international system, whereas its client tends to seek more parochial foreign policy interests with its limited military capabilities. Consequently, in patron–client relationships – be they formal alliances or informal alignments – the client has ample motivation to take unilateral military action that serves its own interests. On the morning of 7 June 1981, for instance, Israel, a client of the United States, launched a surprise aerial strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor near Baghdad, much to its patron’s dismay. On 5 August 1965, Pakistan, another US protégé, launched a covert infiltration in Kashmir, which culminated in a full-scale war with India.

How does a patron respond to its client’s provocations, and what explains its pattern of response? While scholars have studied various factors that affect intra-alliance relations, including international threats (e.g. Walt, 1997; Johnson, 2015), regime type and elite cohesion (e.g. Gaubatz, 1996; Reed, 1997; Leeds, 2003; Leeds, Mattes & Vogel, 2009; Kreps, 2010), and the degree of alliance institutionalization and the terms of commitments, (e.g. McCalla, 1996; Leeds & Anac, 2005; Mattes, 2012; Warren, 2016), they have paid sparse attention to how the patron manages a defiant client. Aside from McManus & Yarhi-Milo (2017) that looked at the difference between front-stage and off-stage signaling of support in the patron–client relationship and McManus & Nieman (2019) that examined how major powers signal support to their protégés,¹ there has been relatively little research undertaken to explore a patron’s management of its client. This is rather surprising, since how a patron deals with a client, especially a rogue one, has a substantial impact on the prospects for regional peace as well as great power dynamics.

In this article, we aim to improve our understanding of how a patron manages its client by examining the patron’s public reaction to the client’s provocations.² A client’s unilateral provocation is a critical security concern for a status-quo patron.³ Such a provocation can ratchet up regional tension and fuel existing flashpoints of conflict, affecting the patron’s pursuit of short- and long-term goals in the region. A client’s provocation thus warrants a reaction from the patron, be it private or public. In this article, we focus on the patron’s public reaction, as it is the very first outlet for communicating the patron’s preference toward its client. The patron’s public reaction serves as a unique signaling device, as it allows the client and other states to infer the patron’s level of commitment to the client. A public reaction made by the patron is thus well positioned to affect interactions among states in the aftermath of a client’s provocation.⁴ For instance, the former Soviet Union’s reluctance to support its then client, China, during the Second Taiwan Straits Crisis in 1958 intensified China’s disappointment and distrust of its patron, and contributed to the Sino-Soviet split (Zagoria, 1962). Another example is China’s unprecedented criticism of North Korea’s first nuclear test, which resulted in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that adopted a significantly more strident language against North Korea than before.⁵ A close examination of a patron’s public reaction thus offers a sound starting point for understanding its preferences toward an unruly client.⁶

Building upon studies on alliance politics, we propose a new theoretical framework that elucidates how a patron reacts to a client’s provocations. In choosing among three types of response – making ‘no comment’, condoning, or condemning – the patron has two major considerations: maintaining its sphere of influence and avoiding entanglement. We hypothesize that if the concern for regional influence prevails, the patron is more likely to condone its client’s provocation, but when the concern of entanglement prevails, the patron is more likely to condemn the provocation initiated by its client. In addition, we predict that making ‘no comment’ is likely to be the patron’s default behavior, as it enables the patron to take advantage of private communication.

We test our claims using an original dataset that tracks China’s reactions to North Korean provocations against South Korea from 1981 to 2016.⁷ In line with our expectation, ‘no comment’ is China’s most frequent response when facing its client’s provocations. In addition, our multinomial logit analysis shows that when a patron prioritizes its sphere of influence, the likelihood of condoning its client’s provocations increases. We find that China is more likely to condone North Korea’s provocations when the USA officially criticizes the same provocations, and less likely to condemn those when North Korea is exceptionally vulnerable. Our analysis also confirms that when entanglement is the patron’s overriding concern, the patron chooses condemnation: China is more likely to criticize North Korea’s provocations after the latter became a nuclear state in 2006.

Our theoretical framework and empirical evidence make important contributions to the literature on alliance politics and, more broadly, on patron–client relations. First, we identify a phenomenon in international politics that occurs frequently, but existing theories have not paid adequate attention to – a patron’s reaction to its client’s provocations. It is easy to assume that a patron deals with a misbehaving client only in private due to the risk of exposing the shortcomings of its relationship with the client. Yet we discover that a patron at times chooses to respond publicly to its client’s provocations, and that its overt reactions can convey important information to the international community.

Second, to explain this understudied phenomenon, we propose a novel theoretical framework that reveals the full spectrum of alliance management choices ranging from unequivocal support to outright denunciation, including silence. Our approach thus fills a gap in the literature that is rich in its assessment of intra-alliance cooperation but relatively lacking in studying how allies deal with conflict of interest. Our theoretical framework also contributes to the study of patron–client relationships by adding a new dimension to the classic abandonment–entrapment dilemma of alliance management: maintaining the sphere of influence. By refining existing insights on alliance management, we offer a new causal logic to explain a patron’s handling of its unruly client.

Finally, we provide the first systematic, large-N empirical investigation of the patron–client relationship between China and North Korea, which has been particularly under-studied in international relations. Although there has been growing scholarly interest in how China deals with North Korea’s nuclear ambitions (e.g. Foot, 2001; Cha & Kang, 2003; Medeiros & Fravel, 2003; Chambers, 2005; Snyder, 2009; Haggard & Noland, 2010; Mastro, 2018), there has been no comprehensive analysis of China’s handling of North Korea’s provocations to date. Existing studies on the Sino-North Korean relationship rightly stress that China’s concern for North Korea’s regime collapse and US military posture could be important factors (e.g. Song, 2011), but they tend to narrowly focus on a handful of well-known provocations for their empirical evidence. By conducting a large-N analysis, we move beyond this selection bias and provide a systematic investigation of the Sino-North Korean relationship, shedding light on a patron’s competing strategic considerations and how they shape the patron’s management of the client.

Explaining a patron’s response to its client’s provocations

We define a client’s unilateral provocation as any military action taken by a client against its regional adversary without the explicit involvement of its patron. These include military incursions, violations of sovereign territory, airspace and water, acts of terrorism (e.g. assassinations or bombing), and displays of force (e.g. missile tests and nuclear tests). To explain a patron’s pattern of reactions to these provocations, we first identify three response choices available to the patron. We then introduce two strategic considerations that a patron takes into account when deciding its reaction to the client’s provocations, and suggest a series of factors that can affect each of the two considerations.

A patron state’s response choices

When publicly reacting to its client’s provocation, a patron state has three choices. The first option is condoning, which ranges from tacit acceptance to outright support for the client’s provocative behavior. In a condoning statement, a patron affirms its client’s provocative action in subtle language. For instance, a patron can attribute blame to the client’s target, creating an impression that its client’s provocation was a legitimate reaction. Another way of condoning is reiterating the client’s excuses (sometimes verbatim) to demonstrate that the patron agrees with the client’s justification for its provocation. For instance, when Israel attacked Egypt in 1967 in response to Egypt’s blocking of Israeli shipping in the Straits of Tiran, the United States squarely blamed Egypt by repeating Israel’s justification for its attack: ‘[i]f a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, I think it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision [made by Egypt] that the Straits of Tiran would be closed’ (Johnson, 1967).

The second option is condemning. Condemnation is usually expressed with a reserved tone to convey an impression that the patron is not necessarily abandoning its client. In a condemning statement, a patron assigns blame to its client and often urges the client to change its course of action. After Israel bombed southern Lebanon in 1991, for instance, the USA expressed its disapproval of the Israeli attack by stating ‘[w]e don’t think that Israel nor groups on the ground should disrupt that process [disarming militias] […] We’re sensitive to Israel’s security concerns, but we urge restraint by Israel’ (US State Department, 1991, emphasis added).

The third option is taking a null position, or ‘no comment’. A patron can either make no official response at all or make a comment that lacks substance. In September 2017, for instance, after Israel bombed a factory in Syria which was purported to have had chemical weapons, the USA merely acknowledged that it was aware of the incident and did not comment further (US State Department, 2017).

A patron’s strategic considerations

How does a patron choose among these three options? In this section, building upon studies of alliance politics, we propose two strategic considerations that can shape a patron’s choice of response.

In his pioneering study of alliances, Snyder (1997) suggests that states face a trade-off between entrapment and abandonment in alliance management. On the one hand, if an ally takes action to diffuse its partner’s fear of abandonment, it will increase the risk of being dragged into unwanted conflict. On the other hand, if an ally takes action to reduce the chance of entrapment, it will fuel its partner’s fear of abandonment.⁸ Research on alliance restraint shows that this dilemma maps onto two different effects of alliances: alliances can embolden member states, or restrain them.⁹ Fang, Johnson & Leeds (2014), for instance, show that in crisis bargaining between a target and a challenger, the target’s ally can restrain the target by threatening to abandon it if the target does not concede, or embolden the target by recommending an escalation of the crisis.¹⁰ We claim that patron–client relationships have similar dynamics, though a patron has slightly modified considerations in dealing with its client’s provocations.

First, as a great power, the patron is less worried about abandonment, but more concerned about maintaining its sphere of influence. By providing patronage to its weaker client, a patron can establish its sphere of influence against other major powers and reap the benefits from it. For instance, a client can augment the patron’s power projection capabilities, as Pakistan aided the USA’s ‘War on Terror’ by providing access to military bases on its territory. A client can also provide a natural buffer zone against other great powers, in the way that the Communist Bloc in Eastern Europe shielded the former Soviet Union against US-supported Western Europe during the Cold War. Given these benefits, the desire to maintain its sphere of influence over the client is an important consideration for a patron when deciding on how to handle its client’s provocation.

Second, the fear of unwanted conflict and entanglement remains a salient concern for a patron. A client’s provocation increases the chances of militarized conflict in the region. Such conflict often leads to the patron’s involvement in one way or another because of its regional influence and great power rivalry, even if the patron is not necessarily bound to its client by a formal defense pact. In general, militarized conflict jeopardizes the interests of the status-quo patron, whose goal is to reap the benefits of stability in the region while maintaining its sphere of influence over the client. Furthermore, if a conflict takes place, the patron will suffer some costs. If it intervenes militarily, the patron would bear the costs of conflict. Even if it only intervenes diplomatically, the patron could pay reputational costs, as its reliability as a patron would likely be in doubt. A patron thus has a strong incentive to prevent situations that could further escalate tensions and increase the likelihood of a military clash between the client and its target.

Regarding these two considerations, the options of condoning, condemning, and not commenting that we laid out in the previous section have unique advantages and disadvantages. Put simply, as summarized in Table I, condoning and condemning create a trade-off between maintaining the sphere of influence and avoiding entanglement, while the ‘no comment’ option allows the patron to escape this trade-off.

By publicly demonstrating support, condoning strengthens the patron’s sphere of influence. If a patron publicly signals that it sides with its client despite the latter’s provocation, it will reassure the client and enhance its confidence in the patron’s future support, compared to when such an endorsement is made only privately. Publicly condoning a client’s provocation also generates reputational costs for the patron, and only a committed patron would be willing to pay such costs (e.g. Fearon, 1997; Morrow, 2000). Other states can

Table I.

Advantages and disadvantages of the three response options

	Condone	Condemn	‘No comment’
Advantages	Strengthens the sphere of influence	Decreases risk of entanglement	Avoids the trade-off Enjoys the benefits of private communication
Disadvantages	Increases risk of entanglement	Weakens the sphere of influence

also infer from the patron’s condoning that the patron–client relationship is robust and the patron values its relationship with the client. Condoning can thus prevent other countries from challenging the patron’s sphere of influence. Yet, condoning a client’s provocation has a drawback. Condoning can generate a client’s belief that the patron will be supportive of its future provocations as well, thereby further emboldening the client to take undesired, risky actions and increasing the risk of entanglement.

On the other hand, if a patron openly condemns its client, it faces the opposite situation. By publicly revealing its disapproval of the client’s provocation, the patron signals to its client that it will not tolerate further transgressions. Compared to reprimanding in private, this public accusation reinforces the patron’s message of restraint to the client by putting the patron’s reputation at risk. Thus, condemnation likely tempers the client’s appetite for further provocative action, reducing the likelihood of entanglement. To other states, condemnation can be read as the patron’s strong willingness to restrain the client, thereby preventing an escalation of tensions, and to act as a responsible great power. However, this signaling of restraint comes at a cost: condemnation can weaken the client’s confidence in the patron, which will reduce the patron’s future credibility vis-à-vis its client and lead to a weakened sphere of influence. Also, other states may question the strength of the patron’s influence, suspecting that the patron lacks control over its client.

The ‘no comment’ option allows a patron to escape this trade-off between maintaining its sphere of influence and avoiding entanglement. By remaining silent or neutral, a patron invokes neither side of the trade-off and is able to take advantage of private communication. Private communication has its unique usefulness in maintaining bargaining reputation and saving face (e.g. Sartori, 2005; Kurizaki, 2007; Trager, 2010; Carson & Yarhi-Milo, 2017). While condoning and condemning are high profile reactions that inevitably engage signaling and managing reputation, the ‘no comment’ option allows a patron to enjoy more flexibility in dealing with its client behind the scenes. Also, by not commenting, the patron can avoid publicly revealing the ups and downs of the patron–client relationship in the eyes of its domestic as well as international audiences. Of course, private communication is not mutually exclusive with public communication; a patron can still send a private message to its client while publicly condoning or condemning the client’s provocations. Yet, only the ‘no comment’ option allows a patron to fully take advantage of private communication.

When to condone, condemn, or give ‘no comment’?

Now we turn to when a patron chooses each option of condoning, condemning, and giving ‘no comment’. First, we claim that the patron’s default response is the ‘no comment’ option. As suggested above, condoning sustains the patron’s sphere of influence at the cost of emboldening the client, while condemning restrains the client at the cost of undermining the sphere of influence. This trade-off suggests that a patron is expected not to comment, unless its concern for influence or entanglement becomes severe enough to take action. The USA’s pronounced neutrality in the Indo-Pakistani border skirmishes during the Cold War is an example. For the United States, remaining silent was the lesser of two evils: condoning could have emboldened Pakistan and might have resulted in unwanted conflict, while criticism could have weakened its sphere of influence in the region vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, India’s patron (Palit, 2001).

Second, the trade-off between condoning and condemning suggests that the patron is likely to condone its client’s provocation when its need for a sphere of influence prevails over the risk of entanglement. One circumstance that triggers concern for the sphere of influence is when another great power criticizes the client’s behavior and signals its interest in getting involved in the aftermath of the client’s provocation. In this case, great power rivalry, which makes the patron prioritize its sphere of influence, may follow. A rival great power’s criticism would motivate the patron to signal that the patron–client relationship is solid lest its rival encroaches on the patron’s sphere of influence. McManus & Nieman (2019) similarly find that major powers leverage signals of support for their protégés competitively, with one major power’s increase in support leading to other powers doing the same.

Given the benefits of having a client, ceteris paribus, any condition challenging the very existence of the client can also lead to a patron’s desire for influence to prevail over the desire to stay out of unwanted conflict. Both internal and external sources of a client’s vulnerability, ranging from a sudden change in its leadership to economic crisis, can lead to the demise of the client. Under these extenuating circumstances, a patron is more likely to condone its client’s provocation to salvage the relationship, for an unruly client is still preferable to no client at all.

The USA’s condoning of Pakistan’s provocation during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 is an example in which a patron’s prevailing concern is its sphere of influence. Speaking in support of its client, President Nixon publicly stated, ‘[h]owever big and democratic India might be, if it swallows its neighbor with USSR support, the future of any small country is endangered’, which reflects the US concern of losing its influence in South Asia to the Soviet Union at the time (Nickles, 2018). The United States thus chose to condone Pakistan’s provocation by blaming India for inciting hostilities against its client.

Based on the discussion so far, we draw the following two hypotheses regarding condoning:

Hypothesis 1 (Great power reaction): If a client’s provocation elicits official criticism from another great power, a patron is more likely to condone its client’s provocation.

Hypothesis 2 (Client state vulnerability): If a client’s provocation occurs when the client is domestically vulnerable, a patron is more likely to condone its client’s provocation.

Third, the trade-off suggests that a patron is more likely to condemn a client’s provocations when the fear of entanglement prevails over the fear of losing its sphere of influence. Factors that make inadvertent conflict more likely can lead to the entanglement concern. One such condition arises when a client’s provocation takes place in the midst of heightened militarized activity by the client’s target, such as military exercises or deployment of strategic weapons. If a client provokes in this situation, it is likely to be perceived as more aggressive than when such militarized activity is absent. Namely, the timing of the client’s provocation creates an impression that the client intends to undermine the target’s military activities through tit-for-tat behavior. Under this circumstance, the patron is more likely to condemn its client’s provocation so as to prevent unintended escalation and avoid unwanted conflict.

A similar logic holds when a client attempts to become a nuclear state by acquiring indigenous nuclear weapons. A client’s nuclearization could increase the chance of inadvertent conflict, making entanglement a more urgent concern for the patron. Notably, a client’s going nuclear can trigger a preventive war by its adversary and other great powers (e.g. Debs & Monteiro, 2016). Furthermore, studies on nuclear proliferation suggest that after acquiring nuclear weapons, a state could become more aggressive in its foreign policy (e.g. Bell, 2015). These findings imply that a nuclear client may commit more provocations down the road, which, on average, increases the chance of inadvertent conflict.¹¹ When a client state is seeking or has secured nuclear power status, the patron is thus more likely to condemn its client’s provocations in the hope of avoiding entanglement.¹²

In addition, a patron’s involvement in other militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) at the time of its client’s provocation can make the concern for entanglement prevail over the concern for influence. As a great power, a patron is susceptible to multiple disputes because of its expansive strategic interests. Though the patron may be able to simultaneously manage its involvement in several disputes, doing so is usually less than optimal: it places an undue strain on the patron’s resources. Thus, when the patron is already committed to other disputes, it may be more likely to condemn its client in an attempt to ‘nip (yet another conflict) in the bud’.

The USA’s condemnation of Pakistan for starting the Kargil War is an example of the patron’s prevailing concern with entanglement. As Pakistan and India both became de facto nuclear states in 1998, Pakistan’s provocation raised the stakes of a regional conflict. With the costs of entanglement higher than before, the USA chose to condemn Pakistan, even if it meant disappointing its client (Behera, 2002).

Based on the discussion, we draw the following three hypotheses on condemning:

Hypothesis 3 (High military tension): If a client’s provocation occurs during a period of heightened tension due to the militarized activities of the client’s target, a patron is more likely to condemn its client’s provocation.

Hypothesis 4 (Nuclear client state): If a client becomes a nuclear state, a patron is more likely to condemn its client’s provocation.

Hypothesis 5 (Patron’s dispute involvement): If a client’s provocation occurs when a patron is involved in other MIDs, the patron is more likely to condemn its client’s provocation.

Data and variables

We test our hypotheses by examining China’s reactions to North Korea’s provocations. There are several benefits of focusing on this particular patron–client relationship. It provides ample opportunities to observe a patron’s public reactions to its client’s provocations, as North Korea frequently initiates provocations against South Korea. Furthermore, previous studies on alliance management have tended to focus primarily on democracies. As a consequence, how a non-democratic patron manages its clients remains underexplored. The focus on the Sino-North Korean relationship helps fill this lacuna in the literature.

We build an original dataset on China’s official reactions to North Korea’s provocations from 1981 to 2016. The unit of analysis in the dataset is a provocation made by North Korea against South Korea. We first compiled a list of North Korea’s provocations during this period. Using the US Congressional Research Report on North Korean Provocative Actions (Fischer, 2007), South Korean Defense White Papers, and South Korean newspapers, we identified 164 provocations that were made by North Korea without explicit Chinese involvement. These include direct military incursions (e.g. firing in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)), infiltration, bombing, and show of force (e.g. missile tests and nuclear tests).¹³

As we primarily focus on a client’s official military action, we excluded from our dataset some incidents that have been considered as provocations by the media and previous studies. For instance, we excluded episodes of espionage. As for North Korea’s intrusions of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), we included only those cases in which official North Korean government vessels committed a hostile action such as firing first in addition to crossing the NLL. Finally, as missile development can be considered as normal defense activity in a non-nuclear context, we included missile tests only if they occurred after 10 January 1993, when North Korea first announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

For each provocation by North Korea, we collected information on China’s first official reaction using press releases and briefings from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).¹⁴ The MFA statements are the most consistent and reliable sources indicating whether China showed any response. Based on this information, we created our dependent variable, Response, which has three outcome categories: ‘no comment’, condoning, and condemning, which are coded as 0, 1, and 2, respectively. China’s reaction is coded as ‘no comment’ if China does not make any official reaction to a provocation or makes a terse, non-substantive comment, such as ‘we’ve noticed the report’. China’s reaction is considered condoning if its statement actively denies North Korea’s provocation, reiterates North Korea’s own justification of its actions, or urges all parties to refrain from taking further action while not mentioning North Korea as the culprit. Finally, we consider China’s reaction as condemnation if it attributes blame to North Korea, expresses disapproval of the event, or urges North Korea to change its course of action.¹⁵

We employ several independent variables to test our hypotheses, starting with those related to a patron’s decision to condone. To explore the possibility that a rival great power’s criticism leads a patron to condone, we created a dummy variable, US reaction, which equals 1 if the United States issues any formal criticism of North Korea’s provocation no later than China’s reaction, and 0 if otherwise. Whereas South Korea almost always has an official reaction to provocations made by the North, a US reaction is not necessarily guaranteed. We collected information on official US responses using briefings and statements made by the US Department of State, Department of Defense, and the White House, as well as South Korean and US newspapers.

To measure a client’s vulnerability, which is another factor that can lead to a patron’s condoning, we utilized the data on North Korean leaders’ on-site inspection visits. All three leaders, Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un, made extensive use of ‘on the spot guidance’ (hyonji chido) to showcase their capacity to govern. These visits are prestigious events that are highly publicized in the official media, and allow their domestic audience as well as the outside world to infer the state of the leadership. Previous scholarship has employed the North Korean leaders’ on-site inspection visits as a proxy for regime stability (Ishiyama, 2014; Wallace, 2014). Based on the propagandistic nature of the visits, we infer that frequent visits are associated with leadership insecurity. For example, compared to other years, Kim Jong-il conducted a higher number of on-site visits in 2010, when his health was deteriorating quickly, leading to his death in 2011. We thus created the variable North Korean vulnerability by counting the number of on-site visits that take place 30 days prior to North Korea’s provocation using Chosŏn Chungang T‘ongsinsa (1981–2016).

We now turn to the independent variables related to a patron’s condemnation. To examine the effect of high military tension, we collected information on joint military exercises between the USA and South Korea. Joint military exercises between the two countries tend to increase tension in the region, as they implicitly target North Korea. Indeed, they have been perceived as a significant threat by North Korea (Ford, 2016). The US-South Korea joint military exercise is a dummy variable coded 1 if South Korea has a joint military exercise with the United States up to 30 days prior to a provocation, and 0 otherwise. Nuclear client state, which measures whether a client state is a nuclear power or not, is a binary variable that takes 1 if a provocation occurs in the period after North Korea successfully conducted its nuclear test for the first time in October 2006, and 0 otherwise. Finally, we created a binary variable called China’s dispute involvement, which is coded 1 if China is involved in other militarized disputes when a North Korean provocation occurs. To collect this information, we used the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) data

Figure 1.

China’s responses to North Korea’s provocations from 1981 to 2016

(version 4.2) for years up to 2010 (Palmer et al., 2015) and newspapers for years from 2011 to 2016.

We include several control variables that are likely to affect China’s reactions in our analysis. First, China has played host to the Six Party Talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis. During the period of the Six Party Talks, China might respond to North Korea’s provocations in a different manner out of a desire to keep North Korea engaged in the negotiations. We thus control for the period of the Six Party Talks. Six party talks is coded as 1 if a provocation takes place in a month before or during the Six Party Talks and 0 otherwise. Second, we also control for the type of North Korean provocations. North Korea has employed various types of provocations. Some result in an exchange of fire and casualties, while others are not necessarily interactive (e.g. missile tests). We created a dummy variable Type of provocations, which is 1 if a provocation involves an exchange of fire or death of parties involved, and 0 otherwise. Finally, we control for the number of provocations that take place in a given month.

Empirical evidence

Figure 1 first shows the temporal trend of China’s responses to North Korea’s provocations from 1981 to 2016. Contrary to the popular notion of China coddling North Korea, we observe that China has in fact been far more reserved on North Korea’s provocations than often thought to be. Consistent with our claim, the predominant Chinese response was to offer ‘no comment’, which was about 71% of all the cases. For about 23% of the cases, China condoned. Condemnation is rather rare, accounting for only 5% of the total responses.

To test our hypotheses on when a patron chooses each option of condoning, condemning, and making ‘no comment’, we carried out a series of multinomial logit analysis. The multinomial logit model is particularly well suited to our study, as it allows for independent estimates of the impact of key explanatory variables on different categories of a patron’s response without imposing any assumptions on the relationship between the categories (Long, 1997). As Response has three categories (condoning, condemning, and ‘no comment’), a multinomial logit analysis produces estimates of the effect of each independent variable on the two categories relative to a baseline (omitted) category. We set the ‘no comment’ option as a baseline category, as we theorized that a ‘no comment’ option is the most frequent, default response of a patron. In all models, we clustered the standard errors by provocation-month, since North Korea’s provocations occasionally take place in a serial manner within a month, and responses to these provocations could be related to one another.

Table II presents the estimates of the multinomial logit models. Model 1 is a baseline model with all independent variables and control variables laid out in the previous section. Model 2 is estimated from Model 1 after dropping the North Korean nuclear test cases, except for the first nuclear test in 2006. The first nuclear test set the tone for the Chinese government in terms of responding to later tests, as the Chinese government clearly communicated its opposition to North Korea’s nuclear explosions after the first test. In Models 3 and 4, we include two additional variables that are related to time to Models 1 and 2. As Figure 1 shows, China’s reactions demonstrate some temporal trends. We thus control for two important time periods.¹⁶ The first is the end of the Cold War in 1989. The second is China’s declaration of its ‘peaceful rise’ (heping jueqi) in 2003. This declaration ushered in a new era in Chinese foreign policy by acknowledging the country’s status as a rising power (Zheng, 2005). We created two dummy variables, Post Cold War and Post peaceful rise, which take 1 if provocations take place in these two time periods, respectively, and 0 otherwise.

Table II shows that US criticism is positively associated with China’s condoning vis-à-vis making ‘no comment’. This is consistent with our claim that a patron is more likely to condone its client’s provocation when the patron’s great power rival criticizes the client’s act. Meanwhile, US reaction has a weak association with China’s condemning vis-à-vis making ‘no comment’ in Model 1, but this result seems to be heavily influenced by the nuclear test cases. The effect of US reaction on condemnation relative to ‘no comment’ disappears when the nuclear test cases (except for the first test) are dropped in Model 2. This is likely, as the USA has always responded to nuclear test cases, and China has also set the condemnatory tone for those cases with its initial criticism of the first nuclear test.

The results in Table II show that the client’s vulnerability has no impact on the likelihood of condoning vis-à-vis making ‘no comment’, but it is negatively associated with condemnation. That is, when its client is vulnerable, a patron is less likely to criticize its client’s provocations relative to the ‘no comment’ option. This result does not fully confirm our intuition about the relationship between client vulnerability and a patron’s response choice. Yet, it shows that when its client is vulnerable, the patron at least cares about the client and refrains from public criticism, even though the patron does not necessarily condone its client’s provocation.

Moving on to factors that affect the likelihood of condemnation, we find that after North Korea became a de facto nuclear state by conducting its first nuclear test, China has more penchant for condemnation. Contrary to our theoretical expectations, however, we find that the USA–South Korea joint military exercise and China’s involvement in other MIDs are not significant predictors of China’s public reactions to North Korea’s provocations. Instead, several control variables turn out to be significant predictors of China’s condemnation. First, the Six Party Talks are negatively associated with condemnation, which suggests that while preparing for and during these talks, China aimed to keep North Korea in the negotiation rounds by not publicly criticizing its provocations. Second, the type of provocation is also negatively associated with condemning. When there are exchanges of fire or casualties, China is less likely to condemn.

For a substantive interpretation of the results, Table III presents an average change in the predicted probability of condoning, condemning, and making ‘no comment’ for each independent variable based on Model 4 in Table II. This average marginal effect is calculated by changing the value of the variable from 0 to 1 if the variable is a dummy variable, or by increasing by one standard deviation if the variable is a continuous one. We discuss this result with qualitative examples.

Table II.

Multinomial analysis of China’s reactions to North Korea’s provocations

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Condoning (vis-à-vis a ‘no comment’)
US reaction	1.326**	1.302**	1.294**	1.267**
	(0.438)	(0.438)	(0.434)	(0.433)
North Korean vulnerability	–0.0658	–0.0632	–0.0789	–0.0764
	(0.0833)	(0.0836)	(0.0831)	(0.0835)
US–South Korea joint military exercise	–0.583	–0.546	–0.550	–0.517
	(0.548)	(0.546)	(0.543)	(0.542)
China’s dispute involvement	0.113	0.102	0.137	0.124
	(0.547)	(0.549)	(0.548)	(0.548)
Nuclear client state	1.942**	1.921**	0.634	0.617
	(0.638)	(0.645)	(0.654)	(0.659)
Six party talks	–0.904	–0.888	–1.218	–1.208
	(1.912)	(1.891)	(1.411)	(1.397)
Type of provocation	–0.310	–0.308	0.0262	0.0216
	(0.513)	(0.513)	(0.584)	(0.582)
Number of provocations	0.234	0.224	0.242	0.232
	(0.167)	(0.164)	(0.173)	(0.169)
Post Cold War			0.105	0.0840
			(1.583)	(1.575)
Post peaceful rise			2.291*	2.295*
			(1.144)	(1.142)
Constant	–2.746**	–2.727**	–3.869**	–3.832**
	(0.528)	(0.524)	(1.280)	(1.263)
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Condemning
US reaction	1.450^†	0.0347	1.428^†	0.0140
	(0.836)	(0.968)	(0.831)	(0.963)
North Korean vulnerability	–0.708**	–1.436*	–0.714**	–1.441*
	(0.265)	(0.594)	(0.265)	(0.595)
US-South Korea joint military exercise	–0.462	–1.218	–0.444	–1.203
	(1.293)	(1.574)	(1.298)	(1.579)
China’s dispute involvement	–1.369	–1.280	–1.359	–1.269
	(1.316)	(1.564)	(1.313)	(1.562)
Nuclear client state	18.16**	19.12**	17.63**	18.21**
	(1.427)	(1.245)	(1.408)	(1.268)
Six party talks	–16.42**	–16.60**	–16.11**	–16.15**
	(1.974)	(1.786)	(1.793)	(1.671)
Type of provocation	–15.90**	–16.30**	–15.45**	–15.69**
	(0.847)	(1.313)	(0.886)	(1.358)
Number of provocations	–0.382	0.0474	–0.378	0.0518
	(0.341)	(0.600)	(0.342)	(0.601)
Post Cold War			–1.431^†	–1.199
			(0.764)	(0.880)
Post peaceful rise			0.586	0.889
			(0.683)	(0.699)
Constant	–17.09**	–17.75**	–15.73**	–16.55**
	(0.637)	(1.029)	(0.840)	(1.304)
N	164	160	164	160

Standard errors clustered by provocation-month in parentheses. ^† p < 0.10, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.

Table III.

Average marginal effects

Variables	‘No comment’	Condone	Condemn
US reaction	–0.185	0.197	–0.012
	(0.007)	(0.003)	(0.502)
North Korean vulnerability	0.045	–0.015	–0.030
	(0.141)	(0.603)	(0.010)
US-South Korea joint military exercise	0.078	–0.057	–0.022
	(0.279)	(0.415)	(0.569)
China’s dispute involvement	–0.005	0.028	–0.022
	(0.943)	(0.719)	(0.341)
Nuclear client state	–0.176	0.056	0.121
	(0.092)	(0.487)	(0.023)

The p-value are in parentheses. US reaction, US-South Korea joint military exercise, Nuclear client state, and China’s dispute involvement are changed from 0 and 1. North Korean vulnerability is increased by one standard deviation.

To begin with, Table III shows that if a client becomes a nuclear power, it significantly increases the predicted probability of the patron’s condemnation. Indeed, China became more critical of North Korea’s provocations after the latter conducted its first-ever nuclear test in October 2006. This change is most evident in China’s response to North Korea’s missile tests. Before North Korea became a nuclear power, China had never criticized North Korea’s missile tests despite widespread condemnation by the international community. For instance, China remained silent when North Korea tested the Rodong-1 missile in May 1993, and again during the Taepodong-1 missile test in 1998. However, after North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, its missile tests became more susceptible to Chinese criticism. In December 2012, for example, China explicitly condemned North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong missile test.

Table III also shows that the USA’s official criticism of North Korean provocations significantly increases the predicted probability of China’s condoning its client. China indeed seems to be sensitive to US reaction. For instance, China declined to comment on North Korea’s terrorist attack at South Korea’s Gimpo International airport in 1986, but condoned its client’s terrorist attack on South Korea’s aircraft KE 858 just a year later. One key difference is that unlike in 1986, the USA took North Korea’s provocation seriously enough in 1987 to officially criticize. Similarly, although China had declined to comment on North Korea’s attack on South Korea during the First Battle of Yeonpyeong in 1999, it chose to condone the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong just three years later. In 2002, the USA seemed to be much more concerned about North Korea’s provocation compared to 1999 in that it issued a formal criticism, which was followed by cancellation of a high-ranking US official’s visit to North Korea. In each of these two cases, China chose to counter the US criticism by condoning its client’s provocation to protect its sphere of influence, as the US reaction rekindled great power rivalry on the Korean peninsula.

On the other hand, North Korea’s vulnerability slightly decreases the predicted probability of China’s condemnation. China’s reluctance to condemn North Korea after the sinking of South Korea’s naval ship ROKS Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong island in 2010 came at a time when China’s concern with North Korea’s viability had been mounting. Not only did China arrange for the then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to visit China twice during 2010, which was the first time he had ever done so, his son Kim Jong-un reportedly accompanied him for the first time during his visit in August 2010. Wary of impending destabilization following Kim Jong-il’s death, China refrained from condemning North Korea’s provocations throughout 2010 and until Kim’s death in 2011.

While we have focused on the Sino-North Korean patron–client relationship to take advantage of our novel data, we believe that our findings are not unique to this dyad. During the Cold War, the Unites States chose to condone its clients’ provocations when the Soviet Union had expressed keen interest in undermining US influence in the client’s region. For instance, President Johnson effectively condoned Israel’s pre-emptive attack on Egypt during the Six Day War in 1967 by refusing to acknowledge that Israel had initiated the violence (US State Department, 1967). The administration’s decision to support Israel was largely motivated by the concern that, should the USA sit back, the Soviet Union would take advantage of US inaction in the Middle East. For example, within hours of receiving news about Israel’s provocation, one of the first things that President Johnson inquired about was the likelihood of the Soviet Union intervening on behalf of Egypt and Syria (Schwar, 2004). Although the USA had been dissatisfied with Israel’s attack on Egypt, the Soviet Union’s outright criticism of the provocation eventually led Johnson to condone its client’s action.

The USA’s concern for Israel’s vulnerability also played a key role in its reluctance to criticize the client’s unilateral behavior when it came to the Arab–Israeli dispute throughout the Cold War. In a memo prepared for President Nixon on the eve of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Nixon’s National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger wrote: ‘[t]he present struggle is above all an Egyptian–Russian struggle against Israel. Israel’s very existence prevents total Soviet domination over the region’ (Galpern, 2015a). Similarly, the USA did not condemn Israel’s War of Attrition on Egypt in 1970 because the Unites States was concerned that its client’s vulnerability might undermine the USA’s regional clout vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Kissinger wrote to Nixon on 16 June 1970, ‘[w]e have three principal objectives in the Middle East: To prevent Soviet dominance in the area; To prevent the spread of Arab radicalism which could pose a threat to Western interests; To honor the commitment we have to the survival of Israel. On all three counts, we have seen our position eroded since January 1969. The Soviets have greatly increased their influence in the region’ (Galpern, 2015b).

Taken together, our analysis shows that a patron is more likely to condone when its great power rival criticizes the client’s provocation and less likely to condemn when the client is vulnerable, as these two conditions are likely to remind the patron of the value of maintaining its sphere of influence. It also shows that a client’s nuclear power status, which may invoke the fear of escalation and entanglement, can increase a patron’s likelihood of condemning.

Conclusion

This article is an important first step in advancing a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of how a patron chooses to manage its unruly clients. By conducting the first-ever systematic investigation of an understudied phenomenon in international relations – how a patron publicly reacts to its client’s unilateral provocations – we offer new insights as to what strategic considerations may drive a patron’s decision to manage disobedient clients and identify factors relevant to those considerations. We provide new empirical evidence that a great power rival’s criticism, the client’s vulnerability, and the client’s nuclear status are significant predictors of how a patron deals with its client’s provocations. Our findings contribute to existing work on alliance management by assessing a patron's preferences toward its client during peacetime using the unique setting of a client’s unilateral action.

Our theory and findings reveal promising directions for future research. First, future studies can further examine the extent to which the strategic considerations that we identified can explain a patron’s use of additional means to manage an unruly client, such as economic aid and arms transfers. Second, scholars could build upon our theoretical framework and identify additional factors that tap into the patron’s strategic considerations. For instance, researchers could examine how a patron’s domestic politics may influence its concerns about the sphere of influence and entanglement when dealing with its unruly client. Finally, our findings suggest that the manner with which the patron’s great power rival expresses its interest in the client cannot be understated, as direct threats to the client’s survival could trigger the patron to prioritize its sphere of influence and refuse to restrain its client.¹⁷ Scholars can expand upon our findings to further spell out to what extent and how great powers can cooperate to rein in rogue clients.

Footnotes

Replication data

The dataset and do-files for the empirical analysis in this article, along with the Online appendix, can be found at .

Acknowledgments

Authors’ names appear in alphabetical order. For helpful suggestions and comments, we are grateful to three anonymous reviewers and the Editor of Journal of Peace Research, Bridget Coggins, Songying Fang, Stephan Haggard, David Kang, Adam Liu, Paul Poast, Keren Yarhi-Milo, and the participants of the MPSA annual conference, the Yale IR Graduate Student Workshop, and the UCSD New Research on North Korea conference.

ORCID iD

Jiyoung Ko

Notes

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