China’s Very Bad Week

I’ll begin this post by offering my congratulations to Liu Xiabao, and extending my hope that he’ll soon collect his Nobel Peace Prize in person. In recent years, Nobel Committee has tarnished the prize with some poor choices, and it may be that a man of Liu’s courage and character lends the Nobel more credibility than the other way around. Even President Obama had to concede that Liu deserved the prize far more than he ever did. The last regime to prevent a laureate from collecting his prize was Nazi Germany.

For China, this has been a week of unforced errors of sufficient magnitude to change the minds of voters and the policies of nations. Its leaders are accustomed to meeting domestic dissent with arrogance and thuggery, global revulsion with arrogance and disdain, and foreign diplomats and generals with just plain arrogance, but all of this goes only so far. Suffering this thin-skinned hubris has become the price of “good relations” with China, at least as so-called China Hands prefer to define them. President Obama tried that approach, and to his credit, he’s realized that it doesn’t work. Which is why I’m pleased to report that Admiral Mike Mullen will not win the 2011 Confucius Peace Prize:

“The Chinese have enormous influence over the North, influence that no other nation on Earth enjoys,” Mullen said. “And yet, despite a shared interest in reducing tensions, they appear unwilling to use it. Even tacit approval of Pyongyang’s brazenness leaves all their neighbors asking, ‘What will be next?’ ” [Washington Post, Chico Harlan]

See also here and here:

“I do not believe we should continue to reward that behavior with bargaining or new incentives,” Mullen said. “China has unique influence. Therefore, they bear unique responsibility.” [Yonhap]

… and here:

“Beijing’s call for consultations will not be a substitute for action,” Mullen said, echoing similar statements from other U.S. officials this week. “And I do not believe we should continue to reward North Korea’s provocative and destabilizing behavior with bargaining or new incentives.

Mullen recounted that in the past year, North Korean attacks on the South also killed 46 sailors in the sinking of the naval ship Cheonan, in addition to Pyongyang’s public revelations of advancements in its ability to produce new nuclear weapons. “The ante’s going up,” Mullen said. “And I think the stakes are going up. [Stars and Stripes, Kevin Baron]

I especially liked this one:

“Northeast Asia is today more volatile than it has been in much of the last 50 years,” Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said. “Much of that volatility is owed to the reckless behaviour of the North Korean regime, enabled by their friends in China.” [AFP]

That’s all nice, and yet the comments of a high-level official Chinese official in North Korea reflect nothing more than more support for the North:

China’s most senior foreign policymaker Dai Bingguo visited Pyongyang as pressure intensifies on Beijing to rein in its unruly ally, after North Korea’s deadly shelling of a South Korean island inflamed tensions on the peninsula.

“The two sides reached consensus on bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean peninsula after candid and in-depth talks,” said a brief report from China’s Xinhua news agency, datelined Pyongyang. [AFP]

This is an astonishing insensitivity, a deliberate indifference to the desire of the United States, Japan, and South Korea to prevent another Korean War. Having concluded that China isn’t willing to help, those nations have wisely opted to talk outside of its presence, hopefully with a mind to closer military ties. Bringing Japan and South Korea together is a big change, and it’s not a change in China’s favor. Under Roh Moo Hyun, South Korea even tried to combine military dependence on America with neutrality between the United States and China. Today, the incompetence of Chinese diplomacy has bungled its relationship with South Korea, a country of far greater economic importance than North Korea:

The South Korean government is also looking for Beijing to take a more active role in curbing North Korean behavior. On Nov. 27, Chinese state councilor Dai Bingguo, a high-ranking foreign affairs official, made an unexpected trip to Seoul, informing the South Korean government only at the last minute of his desire to meet with President Lee Myung-bak.

“The visit was a disaster,” said a Western diplomat in Seoul, who asked not to be quoted by name because of diplomatic sensitivity. “They told them on a Saturday afternoon, ‘I’m going to be there in 15 minutes and by the way I’d like to meet with the president tonight.’ And then there was no significant message, just the same tired old claptrap.”

L. Gordon Flake, a Korea specialist with the Mansfield Foundation, said there is no expectation that Beijing should cut off relations with the ally for which it sent 3 million soldiers to fight during the Korean War. But he argues that Chinese backing for North Korean adventurism should not be unconditional.

“It is not just that China is turning a blind eye to what North Korea is doing, they are enabling North Korea,” Flake said. “China’s overt support for North Korea is blunting the effectiveness of diplomatic measures to curb their behavior.” [L.A. Times, Barbara Demick]

South Korea’s tone toward North Korea has changed beyond all recognition. The indulgence of the Sunshine Era is gone. Its new Defense Minister has now threatened to bomb North Korea so many times, and in language that sounds so, well, North Korean, that I’m almost starting to actually believe him:

“Fellow soldiers, as JCS chairman, I will completely crush the enemy with combined forces in coordination with the United States,” Gen. Han Min-koo, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), told the marines stationed on Yeonpyeong island, according to a statement released by the JCS. [Yonhap]

South Korea will swiftly and strongly respond with force until North Korea surrenders if the communist state launches another assault, the South’s new defence minister said. [….]

“Our enemies will keep trying to attack our weak spots and plot new forms of provocation. We must make them realise how steep a price they would have to pay for their provocations.” On Friday, the new defence minister said South Korea would hit back with air strikes at the North and “punish the attacker thoroughly” should the regime attack the South again. [AFP]

Why am I reminded of the first few minutes of this? (Some rough language here.)

Note that Mullen’s comments suggest that if there’s a response, it will be the South dropping the bombs and the Americans hanging back … and that’s good:

Asked about South Korea’s vows of using fighter jets to bomb North Korea in case of a future attack, Mullen replied, “South Korea is a sovereign nation that has every right to protect its people in order to effectively carry out that responsibility.”

South Korea “also has the right to choose the method which they respond,” Mullen said. [Yonhap]

A very important point to remember here is that North Korea’s sinking of the Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong both happened around a key lifeline of South Korean commerce. Much of the shipping traffic to the Port of Incheon sails through the waters nearby, and most of its air traffic passes close to North Korea on its way to Incheon International Airport, or in the case of domestic flights, to Kimpo Airport. The South Koreans are right that their vital interests are at stake. I’d just rather they found other, smarter, asymmetric ways to strike at the heart of the North Korean problem.

For China, however, these policy shifts are big, and they could be important setbacks for its campaign to become Asia’s dominant power, and a recognized world power. For all the talk of China’s smooth realpolitik and gift for taking the long view, its recent behavior certainly has been emotional, unsteady, and short-sighted.