I’ll bet China could stop North Korea from giving the Dalai Lama a visa!
The nation’s top military officer challenged China to respond forcefully to North Korea’s recent attacks on South Korea and rejected Beijing’s calls for a return to negotiations with Kim Jong Il’s regime.
“There is significant leverage [China] could apply to avoiding escalations and improving this troubling situation,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Washington think tank on Wednesday. “We need China to step up. [Stars and Stripes, Kevin Baron]
China is just about the only trading partner, investor, and aid provider Kim Jong Il still has, and it seriously expects us to believe that it doesn’t have enough influence to stop North Korea from shelling its neighbors, or for that matter, from shipping missile parts to Iran through the Beijing International Airport? Do you suppose China would be equally powerless if Kim Jong Il invited the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere over for a state dinner? Isn’t this the same China that had enough influence with South Korea to stop the Dalai Lama from getting a South Korean visa at least three times in the last decade? This was especially rich:
By allowing the Dalai Lama to visit the country, South Korea also risks losing China’s support in dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arms program and in bringing Korean War era defectors home.
Yeah, gosh knows we’d never have disarmed North Korea or gotten it to send those POW’s home at last without China’s help! Oh, right.
Here’s an interesting thought experiment for you. Maybe Lee Myung Bak should invite the Dalai Lama and the President of Taiwan the Republic of China to come and do some land shopping for the future sites of their interest sections in Seoul. Then watch the laissez-faire, stand-offish ChiCom fireworks commence!
Hat tip to a reader.
What is worrying to me is if Communist China gains if not surpasses the U.S. in global influence, will they continue to deal with foreign nations in such a thuggish stance. And will the world accept such iron fisted changes in policies openly?
So my reading of China flip-flops daily it seems. Where does their realist view play into all of this Joshua?
Maybe their diplomats express frustration but what can we reasonably extract from their actions, that they will protect North Korea to the end? Now that they’ve blocked UN action over the Yeonpyeong incident, it seems to me that maybe they just want calm under any circumstances. Plus there’s a chance that they realistically see the South’s naval exercise as a slight provocation in itself, a tempt or tease if they please.
While the US and South Korea balk at their suggestion to return to talks, citing the ridiculousness of how it ‘looks’, that they’re rewarding the screams of attention (in this case ‘war-time’ murder), China just wants everyone to quit their escalating so that their upward swing in the world isn’t severely hampered by a larger conflict, or so the theory goes. I know we can’t know for sure, but at least that’s my opinion, that China isn’t paying attention to the small war of trust (like what time and again gets in the way of peace in the Middle East) and just wants everyone to calm down.
Though they control North Korea to an extent, could we realistically expect them to hold money and aid over KJI’s head in order to make him cease and desist with the provocations? Similarly, the US must know Israel is often a damaging ally, but at least in the open we do not see them holding back billions of dollars in aid in order to coerce results. Money and aid can only go so far in controlling an ally, and in the North’s case, sovereignty comes before historical brotherhoods.
An interests section would be a downgrade for Taiwan, since it already has missions in Seoul and Busan, staffed by employees from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An “interests section” is a mission attached to the embassy of a third country, used when relations between the host country and the unrecognized country are too frosty for an independent mission. Current examples include U.S.-Iran, U.S.-Cuba, Russia-Georgia, and Israel-Mauritania, none of which should be models for Taiwan-South Korea. One obvious upgrade (short of full recognition) would be to allow the use of “Taiwan” or “Republic of China” to describe the missions, rather than “Taipei”; a few countries already do this.
I have long hoped to see a country that China is actually concerned about (i.e. not Nauru or Saint Lucia) to call them out by extending recognition to Taiwan, much as Russia forced North Korea’s hand by moving to recognize Seoul. But I’m absolutely not counting on Lee to do this, and I wouldn’t even count on Ma Ying-jeou to accept it — he conceded the diplomatic competition to China practically the day he came into office, which has proven pretty typical.
China: transparent or opaque?
Xinhua news agency announced that General Ma Xiaotan, deputy chief of the general staff, is on his way to the US for for the 11th annual round of bilateral defense consultations. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, announced that defense secretay Robert Gates will visit China next month. Mullen said, “Historically, our relationship has been far too opaque.”
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/12/09/us/politics/politics-us-china-usa-defence.html?hp