As the People's Republic of China absorbs the impact of a resounding slap to
the face administered by United States President Barack Obama in Toronto, it
may have to rethink its attempts to form a win-win relationship of equals
between China, North and South Korea, Japan and the US in North Asia.
At the Group of 20 meeting in Toronto, Obama went public with a demand that
China abandon its "willful blindness", as al-Jazeera reports:
Barack
Obama said he hoped that Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, would recognize
that North Korea crossed a line in the sinking of the Cheonan warship,
which killed 46 South Korean sailors.
He said he understood that North Korea and China
were neighbors, "There's a difference between restraint and willful blindness
to consistent problems."
Obama held talks with Hu on the sidelines of the summit and said he had been
"blunt" with him on the issue of North Korea. "My hope is that President Hu
will recognize as well that this is an example of Pyongyang going over the
line," he said.
China, which is Pyongyang's main international ally, has so far remained
non-committal on the issue, prompting Obama to say that shying away from the
harsh facts about North Korea's behavior was "a bad habit we need to break".
Obama said he wanted the UN Security Council to produce a "crystal-clear
acknowledgment" of the North's alleged action, which would require the
cooperation of veto-wielding member China. [1]
Chosun Ilbo, the
South Korean daily newspaper, piled on, making the counter-intuitive, at least
to China, point that heightening tensions with a denunciation was the best way
to reduce tensions - while making it clear that South Korea believed that China
was forfeiting its position as regional leader - and even "bringing the Cold
War atmosphere back" - by not going along on the Cheonan campaign:
If China had boosted international condemnation of the sinking, the
security situation on the peninsula would have been markedly different. A firm
stance by Beijing could have even improved stability. In other words, China is
also responsible for bringing the Cold War atmosphere back to the region ...
As long as China insists on standing by North Korea, which continues to produce
nuclear weapons and attack South Korea, the South has no choice but to consider
other options. If China continues to take the short-sighted approach of
rallying behind a belligerent North Korea, Asian countries and the
international community will grow increasingly suspicious of Beijing's role on
the global stage. [2]
Amid this storm of criticism, it
undoubtedly did not escape Beijing's attention that the other superpower that
has so far declined to endorse the Cheonan findings - Russia - was
excused from public humiliation.
China riposted promptly with a People's Daily editorial pointedly entitled
"Blindness to China's efforts on the Peninsula", which labeled Obama's remarks
as "irresponsible and flippant" and continued:
Without China's
involvement, there would not have been the six-party talks, and the outbreak of
yet another Korean War might well have been a possibility.
Ultimately, the solution to tensions on the Korean Peninsula hinges on
eliminating the last vestiges of the Cold War. This is the time for all sides
involved to break the old, hardened pattern and think of new ways of dealing
with North Korea. This is China's constructive proposal that deserves serious
consideration by all parties involved.
The US cannot ignore the fact that China remains the most important channel of
effective communication in this situation. [3]
It would appear
that the Obama administration's efforts to sideline China and promote South
Korea and the US to central stage in managing the North Korea issue have
created a perverse incentive for Beijing and Pyongyang to cooperate and even
raise tensions in the peninsula in order to demonstrate their indispensability.
Certainly, China's announcement of live-fire exercises in the East China Sea to
counter planned joint South Korea-US exercises in the Yellow Sea between the
Korean Peninsula and China is an indication that China is more willing to play
the military card than it has been before. [4]
Chinese belligerence represents an interesting turnaround from several days
before, when China was clearly considering a policy of distancing itself from
North Korea and presenting itself as an honest broker in Korean affairs.
On the occasion on the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War on
June 25, 1950, the International Herald Leader newsmagazine put out by People's
Daily carried an article entitled "The Korean Peninsula: The Sound of Gunfire
Cuts Across 60 Years."
The author made the interesting decision to lead off the story with an account
of recent North Korean misbehavior: the shooting of four Chinese smugglers
(three fatally) by North Korean border guards on June 4, 2010.
While not trying to establish equivalency in magnitude or, for that matter,
North Korean culpability with the Cheonan sinking, the framing looked
like an effort to line up China with South Korea as victims of the continued
tensions on the North Korean Peninsula.
The piece overtly distanced itself from Pyongyang by condemning the North
Korean decision to divert "Sunshine" policy billions to the development of
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and provoking a hardening of South
Korean attitudes.
However, it drew a distinction between China's low-key handling of the border
incident with South Korea's escalating "war of words" (or, as the Chinese puts
it more colorfully, "spittle fight") with Pyongyang and the subsequent
escalation of the Cheonan issue to the UN Security Council.
The article concludes that American diplomacy is incapable of resolving the
many deadlocks and, despite myriad difficulties and setbacks, the six-party
talks involving China are the "ideal framework" for discussions on the Korean
issue and, indeed, are the most reliable signal as to whether the Korean
Peninsula is trending toward conciliation or not.
Clear message: restart the six-party talks, thereby acknowledging China's
essential role in moderating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
That message has undoubtedly been overwhelmed by the Toronto slap, and Obama's
insistence that China abandon its "blindness" and bow to US demands that the Cheonan
issue be handled a) confrontationally b) through the UN Security Council and c)
under US and South Korean direction.
The International Herald Leader article, which was posted sometime around June
24, will probably be best remembered for China's ambivalence over a brief
phrase included in a sidebar to the article: a timeline of the Korean conflict
beginning with the words: "On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army crossed the
38th parallel and attacked."
The phrase was historically accurate but, in deference to North Korean
sensibilities, had never been employed in Chinese accounts of the war.
In recent years, China had abandoned the self-serving North Korean formulation
- that South Korean forces had attacked first - but retreated only to the
safety of the passive voice, along the lines of "On June 25, the conflict broke
out".
The new phrasing could be seen as an olive branch to South Korea, a
demonstration of China's increased openness on sensitive historical issues, and
an indication that the Korean War was just that - history - and all the
concerned parties should move on and get along.
However, Chinese dithering produced the opposite effect.
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