Not So Robust message for North Korea

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Robust message for North Korea: "'Complex and sensitive'

China's UN ambassador Zhang Yesui took a more nuanced approach to the resolution insisting that it was 'an appropriate and balanced response' and that it sent a positive signal to Pyongyang that its nuclear problems had to be resolved by negotiation.


All eyes now will be on Pyongyang's reaction with many analysts fearing it may respond with more bangs - in the form of missile tests - and more bluster.

It is clear that China remains deeply uneasy about the whole business of cargo inspections.

This was, he said, a 'complex and sensitive' matter. China is urging countries to approach this in a legal and reasonable way and that there should be no question of using force.

Russia too stressed that this resolution was not offering an opportunity for military action against Pyongyang and that the measures outlined on stopping and searching ships were circumscribed and narrow in scope.

None of this suggests that the new sanctions regime is necessarily going to bite."

Is this good news?

The underlying and not so clear issue is what China is willing to do quietly.

North Korea is, in some ways, like Israel. Leaving aside the obvious differences in the moral issues of how each state came to be and how each governs its people, both exist BECAUSE of the tolerance and support of an outside power.

The big difference is that the existence of Israel is not in the strategic interest of the USA. Is the existence of NK in the strategic interest of China?

The sad answer has been "yes." Until now China has used the North to weaken the US and Bush was all to willing to respond by blundering and bluster. As long as the US responds to Korea with unenforceable threats of war, China's international status is enhanced at no financial or military cost to itself.

Obama's challenge is to quietly make it in China's interest to force a new direction on Korea.

For China this may mean something as simple as strict border controls. N. Korea is dependent on its big neighbor for .. among other things, power. Closing that border would effectively cause N. Korea's collapse but using the border as a diplomatic bargaining chip, limiting what does and does not cross, would be quite a different matter.

How does one get China to do this? My guess is that China wants to control its neighborhood as much as the USA controls its neighborhood. They have their own version of the Monroe Doctrine.

So, our joint goal with China may be a American withdrawal from the the far east, with China assuming our role as regional power. Getting to that point may not be as difficult as it sounds. First, the effort needs to be done quietly, perhaps even implicitly so that the radical right in the US does not start waiving "who lost Japan" flags. Second China needs to show that ti can act in a far more beneficent and tolerant manner than it has so far done with Hong Kong and Japan. In effect a US withdrawal needs to be conditioned on a clear respect for neighboring nations with the level of military power each of these have.

The best way to get to such a point would be for China to start by upping the pressure on N. Korea in a collaborative cordon with S Korea and Japan. The goal of the cordon would be two fold: 1. to eliminate flow of goods related to a war effort and 2. to humiliate the regime unless it was willing to become more normal. 3. To create a condition where the US was able to leave the Korean peninsula.

The US may even be able to stay out of this, maybe the ships off of Korea could to be a joint Asian force led by the Chinese? In return, the US would open relations. with N. Korea and encourage commercial and cultural ties.