To condone, condemn, or ‘no comment’? Explaining a patron’s reaction to a client’s unilateral provocations
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319875202 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
To condone, condemn, or ‘no comment’?
Explaining a patron’s reaction to a client’s
unilateral provocations
Jeehye Kim
Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia
Jiyoung Ko
Department of Politics, Bates College
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 provoca-
tions 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 relation-
ships 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 con-
verge. 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, Paki-
stan, another US prote
´ge
´, launched a covert infiltration
in Kashmir, which culminated in a full-scale war with
India.
How does a patron respond to its client’s provoca-
tions, and what explains its pattern of response? While
scholars have studied various factors that affect intra-
Corresponding author:
jko@bates.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2020, Vol. 57(3) 452–465
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319875202
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