As the American unipolar moment passes, Beijing has demonstrated that it is keen on building up the security architecture necessary to play a leading role in regional affairs.

Amongst other reasons, optimists note the reluctant pressure applied on Pyongyang by Beijing through the Six-Party talks as partly reflecting the development of an embryonic East Asian multilateral security mechanism that could emulate the Concert of Europe of the 19th century. But such a regime appears impossible especially if Beijing seeks regional hegemony with a view to develop a Sino-centric order.

Since a concert presupposes a long-drawn strategy and not a one-turn game, great powers seek comfort in the predictability of each other's behaviour. Predictability can be ensured only when these powers accept the international status quo, share fundamental values and interests, and agree to rules and norms within which they operate. By extension, a concert's effectiveness is determined when such powers share a geo-strategic understanding and more fundamentally, overcome a "competition-for-power" security complex and defer their ultimate designs to a broad-based rule of law.

Predictability often finds a host when certain basic rules are embedded in international law. The geneses of these basic rules lie in the principles of customary international law on which specific rules and other operational codes of the day are superimposed. Most critical are ideas, basic rights and obligations, and procedures as related to international treaties.

Beijing's recent approach to North Korea has demonstrated that it does not fully conform to basic treaty-related rules. In contravention of its treaty obligations to Pyongyang, Beijing voted in favour of UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which authorises economic sanctions against North Korea after the latter's test of a nuclear weapon last October. Beijing in fact has implemented some of the measures called for in the said Resolution and aided Washington's attempt to punish the Kim Jong-Il regime.

In contrast, the 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the PRC and DPRK requires Beijing not to take part in any measure directed against Pyongyang. This undoubtedly applies to UN economic sanctions. According to international law, Beijing should have terminated or abrogated the 1961 treaty prior to associating itself with these sanctions. In reality, it is well known that Beijing has kept the treaty in force without having made any concrete effort to terminate or amend it.

The treaty also obligates Beijing to "immediately render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal," if Pyongyang is subject to armed attack and thus involved in a state of war. Read closely, this clause indicates that China has an almost identical obligation for automatic military involvement as the former Soviet Union had under its own 1961 treaty with North Korea.

Furthermore, the wording is vague enough that it could justify Beijing's armed intervention on the peninsula, in a form similar to the Chinese "volunteer corps" that were dispatched in the Korean War of the early 1950s. While Chinese analysts often claim that their bilateral security treaty with Pyongyang is null and void, it actually secures the status of North Korea as a defacto protectorate, which serves as strategic buffer for China.

In strong contrast to Beijing's disregard of legality, Moscow informed Pyongyang, as early as 1993, of a clause in the UN Charter that superseded Soviet treaty commitments to automatic military involvement in a DPRK conflict: henceforth Moscow would come to Pyongyang's rescue only in the case of "an unprovoked attack." In 1996, Moscow announced the expiration of the 1961 security treaty, and in 1998 the two sides concluded a Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation. Under the new treaty, Moscow is only obligated to communicate with Pyongyang about possible coordinated policies "if a security emergency arises"; neither military intervention nor military aid is stipulated.

Although Beijing's recent accommodation of economic sanctions is essential for taming North Korea, Beijing has failed to send explicit signals to the world that it agrees international law is a sine qua non of inter-state relations. Beijing's support of Resolution 1718 is enabled merely by clumsy calculations of its naked national interest and is, therefore, expedient in nature. Beijing is not yet adept at operating within "concert-styled" diplomatic parameters, as its alliance policy does not follow the basic requirements of international law, designed to enable predictability.

To some observers, the North Korean case served as a litmus test in determining whether Beijing has evolved into a mature player in the great power game. The record suggests that Beijing has an extant world outlook prominently featuring concentric circles with China located at the centre and neighbouring states orbiting on the periphery. By extension, Beijing has approached North Korea as if it was a non-sovereign tributary state, and has not managed the relationship with it in accordance with international law. This behaviour is a seminal legacy of the Sino-centric world order, which collapsed in the early 20th century under the weight of Western and Japanese imperialism.

As China continues to soar economically, Beijing has to resist the nationalist temptation of building a new Sino-centric regional order, which runs counter to the existing international system. Until it fully internalises the basic norms of this system and behaves accordingly, Beijing will continue to resemble an agent of uncertainty. And as long as Beijing's behaviour continues to be based on expediency rather than rule of law, a concert with China, or any other regime that seeks to relegate open conflict to the backwaters of history, remains wishful thinking.