China-DPRK: Pomfret on the ball again
http://theutopian.net/
Few observers come close to matching John Pomfret’s insight when it comes to China matters. His latest offering, Why China won’t do more with North Korea, is no exception:
Reading all the stuff about North Korea’s nukes, one thing strikes me: the United States seems to want to outsource not just its jobs to China, but also its diplomacy. “It’s up to China!” and “China can do more!” are the operative phrases emerging from DC-think-tanks and the US government. As if….
First, there’s a silly assumption in Washington that our interests (no nukes in North Korea) are the same as China’s. But they’re not. China’s first interest in North Korea is making sure the Kim regime doesn’t collapse. China’s second interest? Making sure the Kim regime doesn’t collapse. From Beijing’s perspective, nukes in North Korea rank somewhere around 10th.
The article goes on to outline the reasons why China will almost certainly rebuff calls for a greater effort on her part to get tough with Kim Jong Il’s misguided madness. It boils down to this: China likes her backward, despotic neighbour just the way it is, nukes and all.
The only other reason I would be tempted to add to Pomfret’s list is that China takes delight in her strategy of doing nothing (or paying lip service to doing something) when by so acting she leaves the US frustrated and hamstrung in its attempts to orchestrate change. This not to mention the glee in Beijing when their global rivals have to spend so much time, effort, and resources cleaning up in China’s own backyard.
Globally responsible stakeholder? No. Not yet. Not by a long way.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
John Pomfret? You mean that clueless freak who often belittles China, who often brags about how much he knows about China (something like ” I went to school in China..”) and yet knows so little about it? It truly takes two fools to acknowledge their shared retardation, Pomfret and stuart.
China doesn’t care about nukes that NK has? Just because the clueless freak Pomfret says so? Ha! Now some politicians in SK are contemplating going nuclear themselves. Glee? Not from China, from Japan perhaps. Japan has already seized upon the opportunity (presented by NK launching the Kwangmyongsong satellite/missle) to re-militarize. A nuclear Japan is very bad news for China. A nuclear Japan, nuclear SK and a possible nuclear Taiwan province is even worse news for China. China doesn’t care? Yeah right!
What will it take for you people, people of your (stuart and Pomfret) ilk to realize that China’s influence on NK is over-exaggerated? There is not much China can do. China is capable of, but it simply will not suffocate NK to death because NK’s collapse is detrimental to China, yes Pomfret got that right (finally!).
And the pathetic stuart takes every opportunity to take a swipe at China. Yeah, I am talking about you, you pathetic stuart.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Pffefer,
I’m going to ignore all the other twaddle you wrote and concentrate on this:
“A nuclear Japan is very bad news for China.”
I disagree. Further, I think, long term, it’s an absolute necessity for regional stability. The sooner the better, in my opinion.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Though with less vitriol, I also have doubts about Pomfret. I think he gets it right, but usually with less clarity and immediacy as other China watchers. As for his analysis on the North Korea situation, his same ideas were expressed with more clarity (and my opinion insight) two days prior in the Washington Post by Dan Blumenthal and Robert Kagan. Check it out:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052501391.html
May 29th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
You are crazy. You just show the hypocrisy and double-standards of you(and some westerners).
Fortunately, your dream will NEVER come true.
Hope US will agree with you, poor man.
May 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I disagree. Further, I think, long term, it’s an absolute necessity for regional stability. The sooner the better, in my opinion.
You disagree? On what basis? Why would China want a nuclear Japan? Japan has all it takes (technology and everything) minus the political will and permission from the US to go nuclear.
Of course, you, a cynical China-hater, want to see Japan going nuclear, in the name of regional stability(Little do you know that it will throw the whole region into an arm race and will destabilize the region, my smart british friend). Sure. Just like I want to see Britain sink, and I think that’s good for regional stability. Yeah!
May 29th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
“Why would China want a nuclear Japan?”
Of course China doesn’t want it. But that in itself doesn’t make it a bad idea. If China had her way she’d be the only nuclear power. God only knows what would happen then.
A nuclear Iran or North Korea is destabilising because their leaders are crazy. A nuclear Japan? Don’t see the problem, myself.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
@ h
Your reply doesn’t make much sense, but thanks for trying. And it’s not my ‘dream’ so much a nightmare born of paranoia in the minds of many Chinese.
As a responsible, peaceful, and democratic nation Japan should have had a permanent seat on the UN security council long ago. Why can’t they get it? Because China was given the veto first.
Anyway, you can be sure that Japan has the technology. To their credit they don’t appear to be in the business of actively pursuing a nuclear arsenal.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Robert – thanks for the link and stopping by.
Yes, Blumenthal certainly has his finger on the pulse:
“Direct negotiations between the United States and North Korea, in close consultation with Japan and South Korea, are better than working through a middleman who has no desire or interest in closing the deal.”
I think Pomfret was more focused on the situation from a Chinese perspective, and I certainly can’t agree with the view of some that he’s a China-hater.
Neither am I.
May 30th, 2009 at 1:14 am
OK.
I agree with you: Let US handle this.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:06 pm
“If China had her way she’d be the only nuclear power. God only knows what would happen then. ”
A perfect case of your lunacy, stuwart. How could it ever be possible that China is the only nuclear power?
In case you don’t know, countries have diverging interests. What China wants is not necessarily what the US wants (or its lap poodle britain wants) and vice versa.
The bottom line is, (1) you are a fool to suggest that a nuclear Japan will bring stability to the region and (2) you and Pomfret are both lunatics to think China is enjoying every moment of this NK nuclear saga.
stuart, ever wonder your blog attracts so few people? Because unlike me, most people can’t stand your lunacy, your single-mindedness and your balant hypocrisy.
Hey, are you back to the uk yet?
May 31st, 2009 at 10:49 pm
I see some of the Chinese academic community – DPRK ‘experts’ – have started saying that the nuclear posturing is a bad thing because it may impact on Issue No 1, it may lead to the implosion of Kim’s regime…. and thus create a huge mess, a huge refugee problem on China’s doorstep.
In the past, I think China’s leadership probably was happy enough to support – or not oppose – anything that pissed America off. But KJ’s been playing this game too long now, and its starting to get tiresome for all concerned.
I guess there may be some ‘face’ issues involved too. When China brags of its role in setting up the Six Party Talks and brokering a deal, it looks pretty bad when Kim reneges on that deal.
There is, of course, a school of thought that says America, too, is happy enough for KJ to go running around with his toy nukes. They’re not a threat to anyone (other than the North Korean people themselves), but they do give the US a marvellous excuse to maintain its heavy military presence in the north-west Pacific.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:51 pm
http://news.wenxuecity.com/messages/200905/news-gb2312-860658.html
This is for you, stuart. Babelfish it!
June 1st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
stuart,
Your own inability to read Chinese should not ruin a perfectly fine piece which is informative to both people like you and Pomfret and the more informed folks.
Funny that a blog about China doesn’t tolerate Chinese language info. So much about “found in China”. I guess I could start a blog called “found in the uk” without speaking a word of English.
June 1st, 2009 at 9:49 pm
It hasn’t been deleted, Pffefer, I’ve put it in the pending file. I was going to ask my wife to look at it first. She’ll let me know if it’s ‘fine’ enough for this site.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:39 pm
In general, I’d be opposed to any further proliferation of nuclear weapons; but in these days when any tinpot dictatorship can buy the core technologies (from the likes of China) or a complete secondhand missile system (from the likes of Russia), that may be an unrealistic dream.
I suspect Stuart was thinking of the stategic desirability of having another major nuclear power in the Pacific theatre to counterbalance China – in case America withdraws into isolationism again, or just doesn’t fancy getting into a potentially nuclear confrontation with China (China is supposedly committed to ‘no first use’, I think, but from this government that’s not really very reassuring; and within the past year or so we’ve heard posturing from the hawks that tactical nukes might be used against the US fleet if it intervened to prevent a blockade and/or invasion of Taiwan). India and Russia are useful check on China in Central and maybe Southeast Asia, but they might give China carte blanche in the Pacific. However, I don’t think (I hope not!) China has any ambitions in this theatre beyond reunification with Taiwan, and Japan isn’t ever going to be in any sort of position to oppose that.
Anyway, I can’t see Japan moving toward nuclearization – given the country’s unhappy history as the only victim of attack by such weapons, I can’t see there being much popular support for the idea. I can’t see the US or the UN accepting it either. Non-proliferation is still the main goal of worldwide security policy.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Froog,
China has a lot of sovereignty disputes in the region – many of them pretty outrageous – and if push comes to shove I can see the current regime using brute force and sheer numbers to take what it wants unless neighbours have the capacity to make them think twice.
I’m no fan of nuclear proliferation either, but, yes, a little regional balance wouldn’t be a bad thing on the Eastern seaboard. Japan has clearly not gone out of its way to acquire such an arsenal, but if the DPRK continue to provoke and threaten and Japan perceives that China and the US aren’t doing enough to put an end to Kim’s nonsensical posturing, their attitude may change.
“China is supposedly committed to ‘no first use’, I think, but from this government that’s not really very reassuring”
Yes, that’s the kind of commitment we can file under the ‘analects of wartime deception’ or ‘more bollocks from the CCP propaganda shed’
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Geez, your wife? Please don’t tell me she is Chinese! She must be such an accommodating and tolerant person. Amazing. So she approves of the content?
stuart, China has been a nuclear power for decades. Yet her territorial disputes with those countries have not ceased to exist. If you were right, China would have use her nukes as some sort of leverage to get what she wants. She has not. The difference between China and you self-righteous west is, China knows her place and you don’t. China is not going to nuke anybody just to get her territories (or what she believes are hers) back.
A nuclear Japan will guarantee a nuclear SK (who is just as wary of Japan as China is) and a even more beefed up nuclear China. And you are telling me this is good for regional stability??
Blackmailing the rest of the world aside, North Korea does have the right to develop nukes (screw the rest of the world), after all it feels it is being threatened by the US and its cronies. How come China, the US, France, the UK, Russia, Israel, Indian, Pakistan can have nukes, NK can’t?
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:19 pm
The true test of China’s intentions will be when she is in a position to take something she wants unopposed and untroubled by the military, diplomatic, or economic reprisals of others. History tells that that the most powerful voice at the table tends to bully its way to that which it covets.
As ever I’m looking to China to set a better example, to act out of humanistic concern for welfare of citizens worldwide once in a while. But there isn’t much encouragement to be gleaned from the manner in which she is pursuing global resources, or in the unwavering petulance of her posturing on issues like the Dalai Lama.
In principle, yes, DPRK has the right to develop nuclear weapons. But not as a crackpot dictatorship. Something is going to have to give in North Korea eventually, and it’s not going to be pretty whatever form change takes. Doing nothing in the hope that the problem will remain the chief concern of other nations (the China policy) will only lead for louder calls from elsewhere for an intervention. And if that happens, China will be the first to complain.
China not happy with a fully nuclearised region? Then they should start behaving like statesmen and do something to prevent it.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
And what do you think China should do? It is always easy for you to say.
You try running a country for a change!
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Never said it was easy, Pffef, but they really should push DPRK to the kind of transformation we’ve seen in China, for the sake of the people who live there.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Once again, it is easy for you to say since you are not running any country.
Exactly how should China “push DPRK to the kind of transformation we’ve seen in China”? As the past events (nuclear tests etc.) indicate, China has little influence over North Korea.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
“China has little influence over North Korea.”
Yeah. Because it’s clear that they’ve really been putting their backs into that one.
June 5th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
” I suspect Stuart was thinking of the strategic….”
You know froogie, I, like you, always have great expectation for Stuart. I suspect Stuart would make a good foreign secretary for the British Empire.
Seems like there is a reshuffle going on, why don’t you have a quite word with Brownie and get Stuart in ?
June 5th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I like your thinking, st.
Problem is I once kept the change from my lunch money as a kid without declaring it. I’m pretty sure that constitutes an expenses scandal waiting to happen.