Who's pulling the strings?
By Stephan Richter
Editorial
The Chicago Tribune
Published January 19, 2003
In the 1970s and 1980s, the masterminds of U.S. foreign policy were full of big talk about "pulling the China card." What they meant was that, in their struggle with the Soviet Union, they could always outflank Moscow--by warming up their relationship to China. Now the Chinese appear to be returning the favor--by playing the North Korea card.
The Bush administration has egg all over its face, and it's sticky stuff to wipe off. Ever since the announcements by the North Koreans of their nuclear escapades, administration officials have provided manifold explanations of why it is right to go after Iraq while North Korea is being softballed.
For all the intellectual artistry involved in the effort, that is an untenable position. After all, North Korea is a likely nuclear power--and a charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil."
Under those circumstances, referring the prickly matter of handling the volatile North Korean situation to the international community is tantamount to having the war-minded Bush administration turn itself into a peace-loving Carter administration for the occasion.
But with all the hoopla surrounding North Korea's provocations, nobody seems to be asking the two key questions: Why are the North Koreans pushing their brinkmanship to levels previously unseen? And who stands to benefit from it?
If you believe that it is the North Koreans themselves, dream on.
Usual games, with a twist
Sure, the conventional view is that Kim Jong Il is up to his usual games, engineering a crisis to extort food, oil and other concessions from South Korea, the United States and other countries.
But this time around the North Koreans have been much more aggressive, even rattling their nuclear saber at the world community.
It is hard to imagine that they feel so emboldened without having received implicit or explicit backing from a major player. Say, a friendly country that would protect North Korea from any severe reprisals.
What's really intriguing in all this is North Korea's timing. With the United States gearing up for war with Iraq, this could not have come at a more embarrassing moment.
That shows an uncharacteristic degree of political sophistication. While one can only speculate, it clearly seems to be beyond the pay grade of Kim Jong Il.
All these signs seem to indicate that the whole affair is the smart handiwork of a much more capable power, one that wants to embarrass the United States on the global stage and stands to benefit from tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
This power, of course, is China.
After all, by historical traditions going back centuries, China is highly skilled in the art of politics and intrigue as tools of global power projection.
China might feel that by showcasing the absurdity of the Bush administration's "Iraq uber alles" strategy, it ultimately does the world community a favor. And China stands to benefit quite nicely from the North Korean crisis.
First, in one fell swoop, the Chinese have caused the Bush administration to be pinned down for all of the following criticisms:
- That it is promoting an unacceptable double standard;
- That it is obsessed with Iraq (and oil, which North Korea lacks);
- That it is pulling in its tail in Asia (which, in Chinese eyes, is supposed to be ruled by China anyway);
- That it is determined to root out evil in the Muslim world but not in other areas;
- And, finally, that it pounces on weak regimes, but that its yearning for moral clarity and combating of evil can be deterred even by a second-rate (at best) military power.
Diplomatic benefit
Second, knowing that the United States will not go to war against North Korea, the Chinese stand to gain diplomatically as well. They are North Korea's most important ally and thus would play an integral part in any U.S. effort to contain Kim Jong Il's regime.
Irony of ironies, playing along with the United States in that "containment" effort also buys China a lot of goodwill--and quite possibly other concessions. For example, energy-hungry China might be jockeying for a top position to develop oil fields in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
In any event, the contrast to the early days of the Bush administration could not be greater. Back then, the main U.S. obsession was not Iraq but how to contain a rising China. By playing up the North Korean threat, China is making sure that U.S. attention will stay focused on other countries even after Iraq may be finished.
For all these reasons, it sounds quite plausible for China to have had a hand in nudging along the North Korean crisis.
Is such a strategy rational, given China's economic dependence on exports to the U.S. market? It may not be, but then again states do not always act just in their own best commercial interest.
China as puppet master
All in all, the case of the North Korean marionette is a useful exercise insofar as it reminds Westerners, who by now are in some awe of Chinese capabilities in the manufacturing arena, that respect must be paid to China's grand skills in the foreign policy arena. There, the Chinese are undeservedly still considered as little better than bespectacled and bumbling post-Maoist farmers in blue suits.
Therefore, if the North Korean situation teaches us anything, it is this: Never underestimate the Chinese leadership's ability to play masterful strokes on the global piano. By pulling the North Korea card, they have handed the Bush administration an impossible task.
Even if many Americans, unlikely to challenge their president's foreign policy decisions right now, are inclined to believe their government about how Iraq is different from North Korea, nobody in the rest of the world really does.
Finally, the North Korean crisis is helping to chip away at U.S. credibility in the world and it is even leading to tensions between the United States and its allies in Asia, such as South Korea and Japan.
All that suits China just fine.
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Stephan Richter is publisher and editor in chief of the Globalist, a daily online journal about the global economy, politics, history and culture
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