There’s quite a bit that I agree with and something I disagree with in one of my favorite correspondent’s, Pundita’s, most recent post on the Gordian Knot of U. S. policy with respect to North Korea. Here’s something I agree with:
“The truth is that Seoul is unclear on what they want. On the one hand they want reunification with the north. On the other hand they fear that reunification will overwhelm their society with North Koreans. And they are naturally reluctant to share power with any part of the north’s governing apparatus. On the one hand, they say that they are inclined to believe the carrot approach works to keep Kim’s regime at bay. On the other hand, they set up a howl when the US military announced a troop reduction in South Korea; Seoul lobbied to get the reduction slowed down.”
and here’s something else I agree with:
“The US should have been working hard for at least the past decade on reunification– working with Seoul on how to make reunification feasible. This would have given clear direction and support to the faction in Pyongyang that wants to unseat Kim Jong-il and bring about peaceful reunification with the south.”
But there’s something I disagree with as well:
“The lack of clarity from Seoul parallels the lack of clarity from the US side. Even a child could realize there is something screwy about asking a dictatorship to talk sense to another dictatorship on behalf of a democracy. Beijing has no place in the six party talks; they should never been vested with the power to negotiate in any way on behalf of the USA. To say that this is not what was intended–that the US simply wanted China to negotiate according to their best interests–is disingenuous. The US sent a thug to talk another thug out of being a thug.”
Let me explain why I think that—like it or not—China must be a party to any talks.
Let’s say Big Al in Chicago is the head of organized crime there. Big Rossie in Gary runs the syndicate there and Elliot Ness has the goods on him. So why doesn’t Ness just barge in with a bunch of agents and take Rossie into custody? Leaving aside that Rossie’s organization is pretty well-armed and Ness doesn’t actually know where Rossie is, Rossie is completely dependent on Big Al and Big Al has made it very clear that he won’t be happy if Rossie is arrested.
So why doesn’t Ness arrest Big Al? First off, Ness doesn’t actually have enough evidence against Big Al to support a conviction. Someday the IRS will get him for tax evasion but they don’t have the info yet. And Ness doesn’t have enough agents to take on Big Al head on. Besides Big Al has got some very highly-placed politicians in his pocket.
So what can Ness do? The answer is that he’s got to negotiate with Big Al to let him go after Rossie. And let the IRS keep looking.
And that’s why China must be a party to any negotiations about North Korea.
I am not sure I follow the logic of your argument but maybe after three beers and the weekend it come clear.
Okay, Pundita, I’ll part the curtain on my little allegory a bit. I agree with you that both the North Korean leadership and the Chinese leadership are thugs. And that the Chinese leaders definitely don’t have our best interests at heart. But the Chinese leadership aren’t just any thugs—they’re the patrons of the North Korean leadership. Without their active support I doubt that the Kim government would last a month. With their active opposition it would be gone overnight. That’s pretty much the extent of my little story. There were a few other subtleties but that’ll do.
Not included in my little story is the relevance of another little story that you’ve no doubt heard before: when you owe the bank $100,000 the bank owns you; when you owe the bank $100,00,000 you own the bank (or minor variations). I think that’s the relationship between China (bank) and North Korea (the ower). Yes, the Chinese are the Kim government’s patrons. But the costs to the Chinese of a collapse of that government are higher than allowing it to creak along. So they’ll keep supporting Kim just enough to allow him to torment everybody in the picture (the North Koreans, the South Koreans, us, and the Japanese). All other things being equal they’ll keep it up forever. The challenge for the United States is to make things unequal. But I think that our greed gets in the way of that (and the Chinese know that).
Hey Miss Pundita, what kind of beer do you favor ?
An overlooked aspect of the Korean War was its heavy cost to the PRC which had its finest ( and most politically reliable) battle-hardened divisions in the PLA chewed to pieces by the U.S. military. The Chinese were eviscerated in achieving a stalemate.
One of Mao’s sons died in the fighting and since these ” volunteer” divisions were Communist China’s most prestigious, it is extremely dubious that Mao was the only leader of the Central Committee level or above who lost a near relative. For all the subsequent bluster about ” Paper Tigers” and surviving WWIII, China’s leaders lost their taste for direct confrontation with the United States. They clashed militarily with the USSR over Damanskii island and with Vietnam but never again the USA.
The Chinese oppose us through indirection or with their left hand while the right offers a handshake. The Chinese will only lean on Pyongyang to settle if they think we are serious about toppling Kim.