Kim Jong Il rains on Comrade Emperor Jiang's Crawford picnic
UNITED NATIONS — The visit by China’s supreme leader Jiang Zemin to Texas was to have all the camaraderie of a Texas BBQ complete with down-home charm, good food, and banter among the folks that bring a unique charm to the Lone Star State. Thus China’s leader was genuinely looking forward to the relaxed venue at the Bush Ranch in Crawford not so much for the swansong to a career, but for a uniquely legitimizing tete-a-tete with President George W. Bush. Kim Jong-il spoiled his party.
President Bush was most cordial but understandably distracted with his visitor from the Marxist Middle Kingdom. After all, the diplomatic swirl at the UN and the looming crisis over North Korea forced both sides to turn a party into a summit.
Comrade Emperor Jiang appreciates this, as he too comes from the school of realpolitik. Sino/American relations were discussed without the oft gratuitous style over substance hype concerning some very serious bi-lateral issues. For George W. Bush, there’s a flexible realism in his dealings with the People’s Republic of China — case by case, and not letting rhetoric drone out reality.
First, the UN — The U.S. pressed the PRC not to use its Security Council veto of a watered-down American draft resolution which would force Saddam’s Iraq to come clean on its weapons of mass destruction. Jiang restated the standard Beijing line that “China seeks a peaceful solution of the crisis in Iraq and the Middle East.” Fine. But China will not sacrifice its standing in the world for Saddam. The PRC will likely abstain on the UN draft resolution.
Terror — In the post September 11th world, both Washington and Beijing have moved closer together; China rightly fears Islamic extremism on its western frontier, but the PRC has politically morphed many forms of opposition — religious and ethnic — as “terrorist.” Washington would be wise not to fall into the trap of accepting Beijing’s broad-brush definitions.
Taiwan — Jiang cajoled George W that the Taiwan issue remains “an internal affair of China, there is but one China, no Taiwan independence,” etc. Fine. But Jiang knows that Beijing’s regularly repeated threats and bluster to use military force against Taiwan’s vibrant democracy crosses the red line. Rhetoric will be polite but Jiang and his team while seeing red over the Bush stance to safeguard Taiwan’s freedom, grudgingly respect and accept the position — at least for now.
Trade — any scolding about reducing the $75 billion plus US trade deficit with the PRC will wait; Bush will not press Jiang too much over the numbers—at least for now.
Korea — Here’s the issue which spoiled the fun parts of the Texas gathering. North Korea’s nuclear program — wished away in 1994 by reckless feel-good Clintonian diplomacy — has predictably returned as a real and present danger to the Far East. Beijing as one of North Korea’s few allies, was pressed by Bush to convince the neo-Stalinist ruler Kim Jong-il to scrap his nuclear program, come clean on loose nukes, and then prove his actions to outside inspectors.
As the Economist warns editorially, “Whatever the risks in confronting North Korea in 1994, they are more daunting now.”
North Korea has brazenly violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has described the 1994 Framework deal as “nullified;” this is hardly the way for Pyongyang to endear itself to a rightly skeptical outside world. Indeed both the US and China called for a nuclear weapons free Korean peninsula.
Historically China has held tremendous political influence, some would say less than subtle hegemony, over the Korean peninsula; conversely North Korea’s communists viewed a nuclear program as political standing, a bargaining chip, etc. The US and China ironically share the common goal of disarming North Korea’s nuclear potential which poses a direct threat to South Korea and Japan, and indirectly to Mainland China.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone opined during the 1994 crisis, “Even though they do not openly express it, the North is trying to recover so that it can attain equality with South Korea while securing its independence from China.”
As the Korean peninsula remains the vortex of overlapping power interests in East Asia, this is precisely the reason that the US, China , Japan , Russia and South Korea must seriously focus on the North Korean Never-Never land to defuse this flashpoint.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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