North Korean Nuclear Test (Political) Fallout
Mon Oct 09, 2006 at 03:17:45 AM PDT
There's going to be some interesting political fallout from the North Korean nuclear test, not all of it directly involving the U.S. -- which really can't be blamed for everything that goes wrong in the world all the time.
One victim of the test may be the remaining relationship between Pyongyang and Beijing, once North Korea's closest ally and still its largest supplier of fuel and possibly of food. While the two sides have never been "as close as lips and teeth" as was claimed, China continued to help out North Korea for ideological and historical reasons tied to the Korean War.
China however, wasn't happy about the underground blast, issuing a warning through its United Nations ambassador earlier in diplomatically strong language that it didn't want North Korea to procede with the test. Afterwards China called North Korea's actions ``brazen'' disregard for world opinion. There will probably be more to come.
``North Korea, which once listened to China, now clearly isn't listening to China and is thumbing its nose at the six- party process hosted by China,'' Guan Anping, a former official at China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and the managing partner of Beijing-based law firm Anping & Partners., told
Bloomberg News ``It also illustrates China no longer has such a big leverage over North Korea as it used to.''
The timing of the test seemed aimed at part in embarrassing China, which had just played host to Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. China, which has been known to delibrately wrong-foot Japanese prime ministers in past, didn't do so on this occassion, so I'm pretty sure the Chinese were sincere in their opposition to the test.
There have been past indignities too. There's a much-told story -- which I believe is true but for which I don't have definitive proof -- that North Korea was the casting vote AGAINST Beijing getting the 2000 Olypics, which went to Sydney instead. I don't know what slight that was in revenge for.
There was also the matter of Pyongyang continually extorting bribes from Chinaas its price for attending successive rounds of the six-nation nuclear talks in Beijing, which China hosted and in which it had invested a lot of prestige. North Korea managed to get a bottling plant and at least two visits by senior Chinese officials out of China, and then ended up walking away from the talks anyway when the U.S. imposed (quite modest and well-deserved) financial sactions on North Korea.
When you add to the equation the fact that China's relationships with the U.S. and South Korea (ties with Seoul are actually quite warm) are now economically much more important than its ties with Pyongyang the historical reasons for China backing North Korea are now looking prett tenuous. China's leadership isn't comprised of firebrand Maoist ideologues, but pragmatists (and often careerists) more in the mode of Deng Xiaoping.
The other big question is what this does to China's relationship with Japan, which is becomming more assertative, partly in reaction to China's rise and the relative U.S. withdrawal from the region. Japan is still a big important country, even with a declining population and an economy that's growing very slowly, and it can't always let China set the agenda in Asia. Managing this jockeying process is important.
Will the North Korean nuclear test draw the countries together, or push them apart? Either could happen, depending on the two countries' responses to the tests. North Korea often uses rhetoric against Tokyo that would make you think that it was still 1936, and Korea Central News Agency has made not-so-veiled threats to nuke Japanese cities (luckily it can't fulfill that promise yet).
China doesn't regard North Korea as evil in the same way the U.S. does, and as a result isn't quite as scared of Kim or as convinced he's completely irrational or crazy (personally, he seems as crazy as a fox to me; the madman act aimed at keeping him in power by making hime seem dangerous). China won't be reluctant to make some use of the main non-military weapon at its disposal, the cutting off of fuel aid to North Korea.
As well, the five nations who were in talks with North Korea (China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and South Korea) will for once be more or less on the same page -- condemning something that North Korea has done and willing to at least contemplate harsh measures.
UPDATE: I should clarify that China may act on its own to punish North Korea; collective action isn't a given. China has often preferred to act alone, and the US doesn't make cooperation easy under its current management.
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