China's 'S&M' journal goes too far on
Korea By John J Tkacik, Jr
WASHINGTON - China hands in Washington have been
abuzz in the past week with rumors that Beijing was
preparing a policy shift on North Korea. But American,
Korean and Japanese policymakers shouldn't think China
is on the verge of altering its unbending support for
North Korea simply because recently a well-meaning
Chinese economist, Wang Zhongwen, managed to publish a
thoughtful piece on Beijing's misguided North Korea
policies. Alas, it was not to be, although teasing the
truth from the hype takes a little work.
Last
week, several Korean and Japanese newspapers pointed to
Wang's article entitled "A New Viewpoint to Examine the
North Korea Issue and the Northeast Asian Situation"
that appeared in the most recent issue, No 4
(July/August 2004), of Strategy and Management Magazine,
a Chinese bimonthly diplomatic magazine. [1] "S&M"
(as it is affectionately known to Washington's China
experts), is considered to be an authoritative
periodical that is more provocative than mainstream
media, occasionally publishing articles that question
government policy. It is seen as a sounding board for
controversial policy prescriptions - provided that the
policy hasn't already been laid down. Wang's article
apparently appeared on the S&M website the week
before August 20 and was translated by the US
Government's Foreign Broadcast Information Service
(FBIS) on August 25.
Over the top But
it was clear at first glance that Wang's views were way
over the top even for those of us who truly appreciate
S&M. I know, because I found myself agreeing with
them - a first for me. Wang persuasively argued that the
wisest thing Washington could have done in response to
North Korea's nuclear weapons was - nothing.
It
was entirely possible for the US to take no notice of
North Korea's willful development of nuclear weapons and
turn a blind eye to it, he reasoned. All the US need do
was have neighboring countries or interest-related
countries attach importance to it and become anxious.
"What was the urgency for the United States?" he asked,
"Would this not be a better strategy? And in any case,
North Korean nuclear weapons cannot hit the US homeland
for the time being." He suggested that, if left alone,
nature would have taken its course and the Chinese
government would eventually have had to confront
Pyongyang and force it to abandon its weapons, if only
to ensure China's own security. In fact, Wang wrote,
South Korea, Japan and China are the interest-related
countries that will be most affected by the North's
development of nuclear weapons, not the United States,
and therefore China should adhere to its diplomatic idea
of non-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and
support the United States and the international
community in peacefully resolving the North Korea
nuclear issue.
Wang suggested that in the end a
nuclear North Korea would have sparked demands in Japan
for nuclear arms (and, I believe, in Taiwan as well),
and Beijing would have been forced to take action - even
without US begging. I would agree. I have argued that
the mere fact that the US opposes North Korea's nuclear
ambitions is the biggest factor in China's support for
North Korea. After all, it has been one year since China
launched the feckless six-party talks in Beijing and
announced that "the American policy towards the DPRK
[Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea] -
is the main problem we are facing", and since then,
there has been precisely zero progress.
Moreover, Wang asserted as fact that "in October
2002, when holding talks with visiting US Assistant
Secretary of State James Kelly, the DPRK explicitly
admitted that it was reviving its nuclear program". This
was bold! I am certain that Wang knows the official
Chinese position is that Kelly "misunderstood" what the
North Koreans had told him. The Chinese foreign ministry
maintains public agnosticism, simply noting that "we
have no knowledge of DPRK's nuclear program or its
capabilities. We do not know if DPRK has a HEU [highly
enriched uranium] program. According to our
understanding, the Japanese are not completely aware of
the situation, either." But according to The Washington
Post, Chinese diplomats have said, "China did not
believe North Korea had a highly enriched uranium
program." [5] Despite information from Pakistan's
government that Pakistani nuclear czar Dr A Q Khan
provided North Korea with a "complete package", from raw
uranium hexafluoride to the centrifuges to enrich it
into weapons-grade fissile cores, China dismisses US
concerns. By not facing up to Pyongyang's threat, Wang's
article implies, Chinese diplomats are being too coy by
half.
Damnation of Kim, praise for
Bush Wang's article goes on to blame the entire
crisis on North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il. Wang
accuses Kim of the unpardonable sin of "practicing
ultra-leftist politics and political persecution in
order to maintain dynastic rule". He compounds this
lese majeste with the accusation that Kim will
"unilaterally develop nuclear weapons heedless of
whether [his] people live or die, instead of making
efforts to develop the economy and improve the people's
living standards." The North Korean leader's move, said
Wang, "can only land the DPRK in still more difficulties
and in greater isolation", and "China has already done a
great deal of work ... to make the DPRK understand this
point."
And in case anyone thinks Chinese
scholars do not have access to the speeches of American
presidents, Wang observed that "the best note on this
content was President George W Bush's words when
standing at the 38th Parallel in February 2002: 'No
state should become a prison for its people', and
'Korean children should not go hungry when a powerful
army has food'."
Bravo! Mr Wang, I thought to
myself, although I had the uneasy feeling that something
was amiss. Wang's article was simply too good to be
true.
Recalled and Banned And indeed
it wasn't true, or it didn't last - at least not for
long. For, you see, the entire Issue Four of S&M has
been removed from its website [3] and, according to an
email posting from one subscriber on August 27, [4]
"Today, the post office contacted me to say that Issue
Four was mispublished, and that it must be recalled
[shouhui], otherwise they won't give me the next
two issues this year ... but the post office worker was
not clear about the precise details. Please, which
senior person knows the reason for this?" A few minutes
later, another web logger, or blogger, on the S&M
website wrote, "In fact, it wasn't mispublished, I
suspect that it carried an article that was too
sensitive. It is not appropriate for the normal man in
the street to know too much, I guess it was the North
Korea article."
What could have precipitated the
drastic measure of recalling a publication from
subscribers' mailboxes? The previous day, a suspiciously
well-written polemic blast at Wang's article was posted
on the S&M website; it was entitled "Some of our
Intellectual Elites Advocate Selling North Korea Down
the River" [5]. It said the United States is China's
traditional enemy, North Korea is China's friend, and
anyone that suggests otherwise is "even more corrupt
that the Qing government of over a century ago".
It is important on this first anniversary of the
Beijing six-party talks aimed at defusing Pyongyang's
nuclear program that US policymakers who have seen
Wang's article not get their hopes up. Wang's piece was
simply an abortive effort by moderates in China's
foreign policy community to inject some realism into
Beijing's support for Pyongyang - only to be slapped
down firmly by the hardline Chinese Propaganda Ministry,
which alone has authority to recall publications that
already have been distributed. China's propaganda
apparatus and national security agencies are firmly in
the hands of China's military commander-in-chief Jiang
Zemin and his "Shanghai Faction", and as long as they
are in charge, voices of reason and moderation like
Wang's will have no place in Beijing's national security
policy debates.
Footnotes: [1] Wang
Zhongwen, Yi Xin Shijiao Shenshi Chaoxian Wenti Yu
Dongbeiya Xingshi, "Examining the DPRK Issue and
Northeast Asian Situation from a New Viewpoint",
Beijing, Zhanlue Yu Guanli, [Strategy and
Management], Issue Four, July-August, 2004, pp 92-94.
[2] Glenn Kessler, Chinese Not Convinced of
North Korean Uranium Effort, The Washington Post, January 7,
2004; Page A16
John J Tkacik Jr, is a
research fellow in Asian Studies at the Heritage
Foundation in Washington, DC. He is a retired officer in
the US Foreign Service who served in Taipei, Beijing,
Hong Kong and Guangzhou and was chief of the China
Division in the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research.
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