Posted on 01/13/2003 11:55:44 AM PST by Enemy Of The State
History awaits China's Korea move
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - In 1950 Mao Zedong made a historic decision for his country and for the world. He decided that it was more important to fight the Americans in Korea than trying to recover Taiwan, held by runaway Kuomintang (KMT) troops. This decision and the direct clash between US and Chinese troops in Korea started the Cold War. For decades many Chinese were puzzled by the decision: Why defend North Korea, a foreign country, and not fulfill the patriotic goal of reunifying the country by taking over Taiwan?
There were many reasons for the decision. There was the technical difficulty of a landing in Taiwan, defended by the United States. There was the issue of the geographic proximity - it was more dangerous to have the US next door, divided only by a few meters of the Yalu River, if the Americans were to beat North Korea, than to have them in Taiwan, separated from the mainland by miles of sea (see Ni Lexiong, "Why China does not need one Korea", in Heartland 1-2001, The Korean Gambit ).
There was also the bigger issue that by 1950 it was clear that the United States did not believe in Mao; it lumped him in with the rest of the communist lot, and the reciprocal overtures of the 1940s were a distant memory. So Mao had to go along with Moscow, with which he had a history of difficult relations. Mao had to prove himself to Moscow, and to do this he had to fight in Korea. It was a momentous step that cast China in the communist bloc and set the tone of the confrontation between East and West for the next half-century. This situation was only partially reversed in 1972 when US president Richard Nixon visited Beijing and in effect allied the United States with China against the Soviet Union.
As North Korea set China and the United States apart 50 years ago, now it brings them together. Both Washington and Beijing are extremely concerned about North Korea's recent threats, though both dread the possibility of North Korea's collapse. Without the support of China and the Soviet Union, North Korea is no longer a geopolitical threat (see North Korea: Such a nuisance, January 3). However, the real threat to regional stability is not so much the nuisance of the saber-rattling about atomic bombs and missiles, which may never see reality, but the more concrete possibility of a collapse of North Korea. This could impose immense strain on South Korea, forced to reunify with the North and provide for its 22 million desperately poor people, but also on China and Japan, as neighbors, and on the US as a concerned party, with some 40,000 troops in Korea. Nobody is willing to foot this bill, which would strain the regional economy more than the costs imposed on West Germany, and the whole of Western Europe, by its reunification with East Germany.
Similarly, having to feed and clothe 22 million North Koreans could very well cause a drop in the global economy, which is already not faring too well.
In this predicament any hasty move could be counterproductive, as could be war. This would have only costs and no real benefits. North Korea is not sitting on strategic reserves, like Iraq, which could impact the whole of the global economy, neither is it like Afghanistan financing and organizing terrorists who threaten the life of the Western world. There is no oil to conquer, neither is there a radical guerrilla force to crack. The North Korean threat does not go beyond the boundaries, and it is more like the blackmail we see in the movies, where a mad scientist demands US$1 billion or else he'll blow up Tokyo. The goal of the scientist is clearly to get his $1 dollars, not to blow up Tokyo, whereas al-Qaeda in Afghanistan would use $1 billion to blow up Tokyo or New York.
There is at the moment, with no weapons armed, no real urgency to start a war, and nobody would like a war that would end up with the disintegration of North Korea and the huge cost of reunification.
However, something must be done about Pyongyang, and despite its possibly waning influence (see Beijing's influence on North Korea overstated, January 11) Beijing has a few pressure points it can use with North Korea.
China certainly would never use these pressure points, because they could very well heighten the tension with proud North Korea (see Straight shooter and loss of face, January 8). But the fact that China has these pressure points makes it the only country able to exert some influence over North Korea. China is thus the only country that could work to prevent the mad scientist from enacting his threat and guaranteeing that in the end the dollars are paid, because, in the end, it is more economical and stabilizing to pay the ransom, in aid, than to wage a war. Furthermore, only China can help find a way so that what amounts to ransom money does not look so much like it.
China can thus help solve the situation and save face. It is the only country in the world that can do this. Here there are also two aspects.
Therefore in a way North Korea is forging a long-term mutual interest in concrete cooperation by bringing the United States and China together on a hot issue. The problem of North Korea can be resolved only over the long term, and for all this time the US has an objective interest in cooperating with China. Just as 50 years ago the war in North Korea set the US and China apart and started the Cold War, now the containment of North Korea could well be the cooperation setting the tune for the next half-century.
Already the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have pushed the United States into a closer cooperation with China. As Michael D Swaine argued in "The Turnaround in US-China Relations and the Taiwan Issue" (published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002): "Washington's highly negative response to Chen Shui-bian's controversial remarks of August 3, 2002 - in which he spoke of the need to prepare the groundwork for a national referendum on Taiwan's status and described the cross-Strait relationship as being between two states - provided a telling case-in-point of Washington's new priorities."
First the war on terrorism and now the long-term commitment for the containment of North Korea have created a very strong geopolitical bond between China and the United States. And geopolitics is far stronger than ideology, as the Nixon visit to China in 1972 proved. By keeping North Korea under control, China will save South Korea and greatly help Japan, whose economy is not doing wonderfully and would do worse if panic-stricken by a belligerent North Korea. By doing this China will also help the United States, whose economy is linked with the fortunes of Japan and Asia. China furthermore will also need the US to help contain North Korea, as Pyongyang wishes to reach out to America for its economic and political clout. The destabilization of the region and the weakening of the economies of neighboring countries would hit China first.
This strategic bond between China and the United States could last until the reunification of Korea. In other words, China and the US will need each other for next 30 years or so.
The existence of this bond can cast some new light on the internal developments of China. Under these conditions China could do without political reforms and improvements of human rights, easily shrugging off US demands on such issues. But China's bond with North Korea will not slacken the pace of political reforms in China, as they do not depend on US pressure in any case. The Chinese leadership believes these reforms are necessary and will carry them out even if foreign pressure were to stop.
And in a way the fate of North Korea proves the point for China. Leadership there is either in the hands of a whimsical dictator or torn in a fierce power struggle among different factions with different goals. To the Chinese, this predicament proves once more the dangers of the absolute, unrestrained power. China definitely doesn't want to end up like North Korea.
Since Clinton I believe the largest aid donor is da na nah the United States government. It was not China who gave that lunatic Kim nuclear capability it was Bill( well Hillary really via her puppet Bill) and Hil's commie pals.
For example, there's no requirement for North and South Korea to unify upon the fall of Kim Jong Il. There might be sentiment to that effect, but in many ways the dynamic is much different from the author's apparent assumption that Korea would follow the example set by East and West Germany. For Korea, the primary consideration is that these two countries were not merely separated after conquest: they fought a war (for which both countries, especially NK, have long prepared to continue) -- they're not "brothers" in the same way the Germans were.
Besides which, the South Koreans will have noticed how much damage was done to the German economy by absorbing an East Germany whose economy was far more robust than that of NK. There might be aid and comfort given, but I think the two countries will remain separate for a significant period.
On the "strange" side, the suggestion that China take in a few million North Korean refugees is quite simply absurd. The last thing China needs is to have to deal with a vast throng of hungry foreign malcontents -- even assuming that enough North Koreans could travel around and out of NK to "bleed the country white".
Finally, it appears that Mr. Sisci is telling us that the North Koreans are interested in making honest deals, and generally acting like a civilized country. But given their psychotic internal policies, not to mention their exportation of weapons to other unwholesome dictators worldwide, there's absolutely no reason to believe this.
Conclusion: file under "questionable at best."
The author does not touch the collapse of NPT if N. Korea gets and openly flaunt her nukes. At the least, the entire E. Asian countries, including Taiwan, would become nuclear powers. China's clout in the region will be in serious decline.
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