[Question & Answer With Chalmers Johnson] ‘China Will Emerge as Hegemon of East Asia’
Below are excerpts from The Korea Times’ interview with Chalmers Johnson. _ Ed.
Question: How would you summarize the security landscape in Northeast Asia?
Answer: I think the most basic issue in Northeast Asia is that peace is breaking out; that is, there is a powerful movement towards commerce. This is reflected above all by the emergence of China now after 20 years of growth above 9 percent, and the fact that China is not the same kind of totalitarian regime that we saw during the period of Mao Tse-tung.
The fundamental thing is readjusting to China, the world’s oldest continually existent civilization. It seems to me that the most dangerous development is the fact that the United States has failed to readjust. The United States is caught up in an anachronism, a way of doing business associated with the Cold War.
They still believe the critical element in Northeast Asia is military force. I believe that they are mistaken in this. The United States continues to try and see China as a military challenge to its global hegemony. But American global hegemony is already looking very weak and unlikely to last long.
Q: You have said that on the Nov. 2, 2004 Election Day, America crossed the Rubicon. Can you explain this to our readers?
A: What crossing the Rubicon means is to take a step that is irrevocable, to do something that you cannot back down on. It seems to me that that’s what happened in the American election in 2004.
Before that, the American public could argue to the international community that George Bush’s policies were not their policies, that he wasn’t really elected in 2000, that it was a bungled election.
But even though there were electoral irregularities in 2004, Bush won the popular vote which he had lost in 2000. This, it seems to me, was an accountability act, a mandate from the people, to use preventative war, to torture captives, to basically run the U.S. government in a fiscally unwise manner.
In this sense, we can see a crossing of the Rubicon that could lead to the destruction of the American republic.
Q: As China gains greater economic and military power, won’t it also seek to be an imperialist hegemony, as you believe the U.S. has?
A: Let’s be honest about this. Almost certainly, China will emerge as the hegemon of East Asia. The important question is on what terms this occurs. If all China asks for is to be considered the preeminent power in the region and others to respect them, I believe that can work quite well.
If they mean some kind of military domination, then this will be a disaster. And it is not clear that they would succeed in that. The people of East Asia do not want to be dominated by any foreign power.
Also, any thought of Chinese hegemony will eventually be balanced by India. The Indians are never going to accept it. There has to be a ``modus vivendi’’ there. So I remain fairly optimistic about the emergence of China. China has no interest in war. It is interested in raising its power economically. It is healthy that South Korea has realized this.
Q: The United States and Japan earlier this year declared that the Taiwan Strait issue was their common strategic goal. You call that foolish, right?
A: I think it’s a strategic blunder and evidence of the insensitivity of the Americans, particularly people like (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice. Anyone who has worked in East Asia would know that you could not more seriously insult Beijing than to sign a document saying that Japan, after six decades of pacifism, is giving it up and they are giving it up to express a military interest in the Taiwan Strait, which was a former colony of Japan.
The Americans are playing an extremely dangerous game to get involved in Taiwan. War with China would be World War III. It would be an unmitigated disaster. The United States probably would also not win the war _ it would be like Vietnam. The Chinese probably have the capacity, if the U.S. used nuclear weapons, to retaliate against West coast U.S. cities. It would be the end of civilization as we know it.
Q: Relations between Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo are at a low ebb due to a series of historical disputes? Can you comment on this situation?
A: The historical disputes can be solved and are not primary. What is primary is Japan’s refusal to acknowledge the role of imperial Japan in 19th and 20th century East Asia. This is genuinely insulting.
During the Chinese vice foreign minister’s visit to Japan last month, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi came out and said that the Yasakuni Shine was a domestic matter and he didn’t like the Chinese interfering in domestic affairs. The Chinese official had an appointment to see the prime minister, but instead flew home. She said sayonara. I think she was absolutely right. This was so insensitive and so stupid on the part of the Japanese.
Moreover, once you get into the details in these history wars, we’re not talking about differences of opinion, we’re talking about Japan’s open denial of things we all know happened. This is where I am very critical of the United States. Americans aren’t really appreciating how loaded an issue that is.
The Americans understand the Jewish holocaust; it’s a big issue in this country. They would explode over anti-Jewish remarks in, say, a German newspaper these days. Here is where our people are uninformed and our press is doing a bad job: They don’t fully know that 23 million Chinese lost their lives during World War II at the hands of the Japanese.
People who don’t understand these issues very well often make the point that German apologized to its victims after World War II, but Japan did not. I’ve always felt that wasn’t true. It did apologize but it just took a different course: it was Article 9 of the constitution (the ``pacifism clause’’). I was in Japan during this period and I remember that in the 1960s and 1970s Japanese were proud of Article 9.
What it said to the rest of East Asia was that we are never again going to do what we’ve done in the past. That is what the danger is when Americans continue to put pressure on Japan to get rid of Article 9. This is the equivalent of telling the rest of East Asia that we withdraw our apology. So I applaud the straight talk of President Roh Moo-hyun to the Japanese. I think it is exactly what is called for.
Q: What is the ultimate goal of the rearmament of Japan?
A: We don’t know concretely the answer to that question. I believe from the American point of view, they are trying to use a rearmed Japan, maybe even a nuclear-armed Japan, as a counterfoil to China. The Americans know they are overextended. That their military is not even able to handle the Iraq war, let alone any kind of military conflict in East Asia. The Americans are also worried that if they use nuclear weapons in China, they are going to be seen as a Nazi regime.
It makes sense to me that under the Bush administration, the Koreans would become more suspicious of the Americans. But what I don’t understand is why the Japanese should draw closer. It suggests that they are not very smart. They are taking the country in a very dangerous direction and the only way to stop that is to resist and continue to put pressure on Japan to come to its senses.
Q: Do you think that North Korea is determined to be a nuclear power regardless of diplomatic efforts to dissuade it?
A: Yes, I think so. The truth of the matter is that North Korea is going to be a nuclear power, the same as Iran. They are determined to do this because they are surrounded by potentially hostile nuclear powers. In the case of Korea, this is the United States and Japan. But they know that it is a last resort. If it fails then it’s a doomsday machine.
We don’t know for sure if North Korea has nuclear weapons yet, but what we do know is that no one believes American intelligence any more. After Iraq, they are never going to believe us again. The Europeans have said they don’t believe us on Iran, China and South Korea have said they don’t believe us on North Korea.
Q: How could the nuclear standoff be solved?
A: I believe that the truth of the matter is that the relationship between North Korea and the United States could be solved very easily by some greater American realism. The North Koreans signed an agreement in 1994 with Bill Clinton that actually made sense. It said we will build for you some power reactors that don’t produce plutonium and we’ll also guarantee that we are not going to attack you, in return for which you give up on the old Yongbyon reactors. We violated that agreement every bit as much as North Korea did.
The Clinton government for three years did nothing because they thought North Korea was going to collapse. They saw the famine developing at the same time, so why do anything. This was a misreading.
When the North Koreans call for direct negotiations with the United States, this is only logical. The armistice agreement is signed by North Korea and the United States, not South Korea. It is the United States that is threatening North Korea. I grant you that people get irritated over the tricks of a very poor country in keeping themselves alive.
What is called for is a magnanimous gesture on the part of the victors _ that is the United States and South Korea. I believe this magnanimity is there in the government in Seoul. Kim Dae-jung has started it and Roh Moo-hyun has certainly continued it and I believe it should be Korean policy.
rjs@koreatimes.co.kr
06-08-2005 20:38
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