Korean conundrum and China’s rise

By Sushil Seth

Even though the situation on the Korean peninsula was defused in the wake of the South Korean military drills on the Yeopyeong island in the Yellow Sea, it came pretty close to a blow up.

Pyongyang had threatened “deadlier” retaliation if Seoul went ahead with its exercises. South Korea went ahead anyway. The stakes this time were much higher for North Korea with the inclusion in the exercise of about 20 American troops. In other words, the US was committed to its South Korean ally against any military escalation from Pyongyang.

In November, Pyongyang had retaliated against a South Korean military drill on the island that killed 4 people and destroyed homes. Therefore, it didn’t seem like an empty threat when North Korea threatened havoc.

But the inclusion of American soldiers in the military exercise was probably a important factor in dissuading Pyongyang for fear that any resultant injury and/or fatality of US personnel might invite American retaliation.

Besides, Seoul stood its ground and mobilized forces against any threat from North Korea. The emergency meeting of the Security Council, that was called to defuse the situation, found China and Russia urging South Korea to back off. But the United States stood by its South Korean ally.

Seoul was in a quandary. For a long time, Pyongyang had come to exercise a veto of sorts on South Korea’s peninsular policies by threatening retaliation of one sort or the other, more often than not threatening annihilation. Seoul often backed off for fear of a war, with its capital, Seoul, within range of North Korean artillery.

But President Lee Myung-bak’s administration decided to challenge Pyongyang’s veto on South Korea’s security policy by following up its military drills on the Yeopyeong island with a large-scale military exercise, just south of the heavily armed border.

While Russia and China have condemned this new exercise and called for restraint, the United States has backed its ally’s right to hold the defensive exercise. This is looking increasingly like a renewed Cold War visiting the Korean peninsula.

North Korea, of course, has threatened retaliation, declaring that it was “fully prepared to launch a sacred war of justice…based on the nuclear deterrent at any time necessary to cope with enemies’ actions.”

But the threat seems slightly less forbidding than has been the case before. For instance, Pyongyang’s threat has a moral dimension “to launch a sacred war of justice”.

And it doesn’t threaten nuclear war per se but the possible use of nuclear deterrent “to cope with enemies’ actions.” In other words, the overall terminology seems comparatively less belligerent.

Pyongyang obviously was not anticipating another, and much larger, South Korean military exercise, right across the border. Having backed off from threatened retaliation after South Korea’s military drills on the Yeopyeong island, it sought to put the best face on it by taking a high moral ground, declaring it “did not feel any need to retaliate against every despicable military provocation.”

Because: “The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war.” Its news agency KCNA blasted the “puppet warmongers” in South Korea.

But it also wanted to create some sort of diplomatic momentum ---at least the appearance of it.

This is where the unofficial visit to North Korea of Bill Richardson, former UN representative of the United States (and present governor of New Mexico), came handy. Pyongyang let it known through Richardson that it would let in inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

It has also reportedly agreed to ship 12,000 nuclear fuel rods to an outside (so far unspecified) country. And Pyongyang is agreeable to the formation of a military commission and to institute a hotline between the two Koreas.

But the United States is not buying into this new diversion that North Korea wants to create to get out of an ugly war-like situation it created in the first place.

And Pyongyang might even be willing to go back to the six-nation talks to get out of a sticky situation. But, if the recent history of nuclear talks is anything to go by, Pyongyang might be keen to use it as a bargaining chip to get all sorts of concessions from the US, Japan and South Korea.

Because it is a bargaining counter, North Korea is not keen to dismantle its entire nuclear program for the promise of economic aid, political legitimacy and the construction of nuclear power reactors (by its neighbors South Korea and Japan) powered by low-grade nuclear fuel, without the potential of turning into atomic bombs.

Pyongyang would like its denuclearization (if it were to happen at all) sequentially based on specific concessions from its dialogue patners with each successive step on the denuclearization ladder. The trouble, though, is that with its preferred sequential approach, North Korea can always go back to reviving the entire nuclear cycle at any time, if not satisfied with what it is getting in return.

It has happened before with the tardy progress of the 1994 nuclear deal, and new political problems during the Bush administration.

Therefore, one shouldn’t read too much into Pyongyang’s concessions (with or without possible denuclearization talks at some point) that seem tactical to defuse a dangerous situation. The US, in any case, doesn’t seem in any hurry to get back to any kind of dialogue with Pyongyang without tangible progress on the nuclear issue.

At the same time, though, the situation between the two Koreas remains quite tense.

The Korean issue has much wider implications. It is tied down with China’s commitment to North Korea, Japan’s fear of North Korean nuclear program and China’s regional bellicosity (backed with its military build up), and apparent US determination to stick around the Asia-Pacific region and with its allies.

Japan, for instance, is becoming increasingly concerned about China’s combative regional posture. Beijing is asserting its sovereignty over South China Sea, ignoring the rival claims of other South East Asian countries.

It has also sought to go ahead with gas exploration in East China Sea, where Japan claims sovereignty over Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands to the Chinese), claimed also by China and Taiwan.

This has created some ugly incidents, with potential to get uglier if not handled with care.

China’s high pitch nationalist reaction against the detention of the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler that collided with two Japanese patrol boats is an example in point. Japan caved in by releasing the captain, and defused the situation.

Japan’s new National Defense Program Guidelines point to China’s military activities and lack of transparency as matters “of concern for the regional and global community.”

The new strategic doctrine shifts the emphasis on defending the country’s northern borders from Russia to confront the new situation arising from the rise of China. And to this end, it is planning a significant increase in its naval defenses.

For instance, it will increase from four to six the number of destroyers equipped with Aegis anti-ballistic missile technology. This will strengthen the joint missile shield it is developing with the United States. Japan is also enlarging its submarine fleet from 16 to 22.

Japan also sees, “North Korea’s nuclear and missile issues [as]…grave destabilizing factors to regional security.” And with China unwilling or unable to restrain North Korea, it is easy to imagine Japan’s sense of a security threat.

The combination of China’s so-called “peaceful rise”, and North Korea’s gung-ho behavior, is leading some regional countries to draw even closer to the United States to counter a dangerous situation. Will this keep a lid on China’s ambitions and North Korea’s brinkmanship? Only time will tell.