posted
They didn't seem to be trying to cover anything.
And Lyrhawn, from the New York Times: "China issued a statement expressing 'serious concern' over the launchings, but calling on all sides to 'maintain calm and restraint,' and to avoid moves that would 'add to tensions and further complicate the situation,' Reuters reported."
Surprisingly, it appears that China is the furthest from throwing a hissy fit and is instead playing the mediator. I thought that was interesting.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Interesting. I wonder how long that will last.
This is bad for China in a half dozen ways, just off the top of my head.
1. It negates their status as the big kid on the block.
2. They lose face, with N. Kore more or less proving to the world that China has no power over them, they're a toothless tiger now in all future negotiations, given the supposed nature of the missile launch being a ploy to bring the US to bilateral discussions. China gets left out in the cold.
3. It gives the US the perfect excuse to arm the hell out of Japan and South Korea with SM2s, surface to air point defense missiles. Giant Patriot missiles basically. With a double layer of these, it makes it very, very hard for China to use their two or so dozen ballistic missiles as any sort of a threat with so many ever increasingly potent anti-missile weapons in theater. It's one more card that China can't play, and they have no real room to try and stop the deal from going through. And it gives the US one more card to play with in negotiations with China.
4. Beyond breaking their role as the king of Asia, and as the North Korean middle man, it breaks up their hold in general over the area. With the US bringing in their expertise and weapons, any hope that China might have had of drawing S Korea or Japan closer to her and away from the US is slapped down a little bit. The mutual defense relationship is doubly strengthened, and the threat from China and N. Korea just appears twice as large as it did before this weekend.
Okay I guess not a half dozen reasons, but those are reason enough. They stand to lose a lot from N. Korea's dallying, and N. Korea stands to gain a LOT. But the US gets a lot out of this deal too. China will still try and play the role of the east Asian middle man peace maker, and if Bush is smart, he'll let them save face and try and deal through them, but now we know that China has no sway over Kim. He'll do whatever he wants, neighbors, even the Red Dragon, be damned.
The hissy fit might not be public yet, or ever, but I guarantee it's happening somewhere.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Are you kidding? China loves this. It lets them play up their image as a voice of maturity and moderation. As for your points:
1. Not at all. One failed long range missile launch does not a major world power make; China has significantly more military might than NK, with its incredibly puny economy, could ever wish for.
2. NK has been ignoring China for forever, largely because they (rightly) view China as a threat. Nobody's thought they could control NK, so nobody's going to see China as losing face over it.
3. This maybe changes the time table moderately, and not much at that. NK's already been able to fire missiles over Japan (and certainly SK).
4. China's never really been King of Asia. Japan and SK are both economic superpowers strongly independent of China, and Japan has the technical know how and nuclear material to build enough nukes (and the missiles to carry them) to flatten China. Even the smaller nations have been exerting a lot of independence in the SE Asian economic cooperation efforts. As for preventing any drawing of Japan or SK away from the US (though China certainly doesn't seem to have much interest in the notion), this provides a golden opportunity for that. See voice of maturity and moderation above.
NK did China a big favor.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Who is going to listen to China? They can be the voice of whatever they want, but the fact of the matter is they aren't going to be involved in the discussion.
And I can't imagine they are thrilled at the prospect of all the mutual missile shield treaty pact talk that is flying across the Pacific. Even if it was eventually going to happen anyway.
Since when has Japan ever made economy decisions based on which nation they sell to or buy from is the voice of maturity and moderation? They want money. I don't know if S. Korea is quite so cut throat about it, but this flowery language that you seem to think is going to give China some advantage I don't think exists at all.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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This doesn't impede China's ability to take Japan's money one whit, so I'm not sure how you have any point at all. However, China has been creating increasingly wintery relations with Japan, largely over Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni shrine. This has significantly slowed the development of economic relations between the two powers. So Japan has been perfectly willing to continue provocative actions that cost it money, and China has been perfectly willing to be provoked.
And I have no idea where you're getting flowery language from, reputation is the hard currency of diplomatic relations; China's happy to have somebody nearby people will harp on instead of them.
As for China being involved in the discussion, you're just going to be wrong about that. If the talks resume, they'll continue to be the 6 party talks (unless somebody like Japan drops out), and China will continue to be one of the organizers. The only other talks NK has expressed an interest in are two party talks with Washington, but this missile launch has scuttled any hope of that in the foreseeable future.
As a side note, its pretty clear why NK took this course of action. Iran has been getting not just more attention, but better offers, despite being significantly further back on the road to nuclear weaponry. NK wants some of that pie.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
But isn't giving cookies to regimes that engage in antisocial behavior just encouraging other regimes to be antisocial too?
The US has to be aware of this, and whatever the reason that they gave Iran an incentive package, they do not apparently want to do the same with N.K.
Posts: 375 | Registered: Mar 2005
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The trick is to match cookies (commonly known as carrots) and sticks appropriately, so that while regimes are encouraged to comply they have no incentive to continue bucking international norms.
The Bush administration, sadly, has shown itself very bad at doing this with the more recalcitrant regimes. In large part this is due to the lack of strong international backing, making it hard to fine tune the carrots and sticks. For instance, NK would likely be better handled with either a slightly less harsh stick or a better carrot (our problem has been coming up with an offer we can deliver that's not too much), and Iran could use a significantly harsher stick (our problem has been coming up with a threat they care about).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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