Dear Leader's see-no-evil enablers
With North Korea, China is the problem, not the solution
by George Jonas
National Post
June 12, 2010
Seogwipo, the Orient's answer to Niagara Falls, is on South Korea's honeymoon island of Jeju. Usually visited by seabirds and lovebirds, it had birds of a different feather flocking together two weeks ago. The regional summit of China, Japan and South Korea originally had been convened to explore common-market models in Asia, but the March sinking of the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan by what an international commission determined was a North Korean torpedo, changed it into a discussion of what to do about Kim Jong-il's rogue regime.
As China's premier stood on a platform flanked by Japan's prime minister and South Korea's president at the conclusion of their two-day summit, it was impossible not to think of the well-known simian tableau. While Wen Jiabao could see, hear, and speak no evil about his country's protege, North Korea, Japan's Yukio Hatoyama and South Korea's Lee Myung-bak had a different problem. They could see and hear evil, all right; they just couldn't do a damn thing about it.
South Korea spent the 57-year truce since the end of the shooting war between the two Koreas polishing its economy and democracy; North Korea spent it polishing repression and its arsenal. As a result, by the 21st century, South Korea had a fair bit of freedom and food, while North Korea had no freedom, little food but a fair bit of rocketry -- enough to export some to the Middle East. Oh, and it had the Bomb.
No wonder that after North Korea sank the Cheonan, the world's advice to the injured party, South Korea, was: Forget it. Europe said so; even Canada. They gave the same advice to the "neighbourhood watch" of the United States and Japan. Don't go after the bully. Don't even bother calling the cops of the United Nations. Complain to China.
North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim is China's pet, said pundits. Let Wen Jiabao muzzle and put him on a leash. The world's dogcatchers are busy elsewhere. The one in Washington may be going out of business altogether. Let Beijing curb Pyongyang.
The trouble was that, as some predicted, far from muzzling Kim, Wen wasn't even going to say "bad dog" to him. In fact, he would veto anyone who tried. Muzzling Kim wasn't the pressing task. What was? The Chinese president spelled it out at the end of the Seogwipo summit:
"The pressing task now is to respond appropriately to the serious effects of the Cheonan incident," he said, "to steadily reduce tensions, and especially to avoid a clash."
In other words, following the loss of its patrol boat with 46 sailors, South Korea's pressing task was to take active steps to avoid a clash. Maybe it was for Lee Myung-bak to do something conciliatory, such as offer shipments of consumer goods to Pyongyang, after apologizing to Kim for the South's corvette getting in the way of the North's torpedo.
A joke, yes -- except it isn't funny.
Westerners who look to China for relief against North Korean aggression fail to see that China is the problem, not the solution. Kim's actions are tacitly condoned, often encouraged, sometimes instigated, and invariably utilized by Beijing. Blowing a South Korean warship out of the water does not appear to be in China's direct interest, and it probably isn't. But by doing it, then strutting and threatening further acts of violence if rebuked, Kim helps create a need for regional powers to turn to China for redress. Kim's acting up illustrates that America is a paper tiger; that Japan, once a bully, is barely a bystander, and that while lack of protein may have made two generations of North Korean soldiers ridiculously short, riding in the saddle of nuclear horses makes them a lot taller -- maybe tall enough to finish the job Kim's father started in 1950. One day, who knows, they may reunite the old Hermit Kingdom under a Kim dynasty. In short, kimchi tastes better but missiles go further; the 2010s aren't the 1950s; B. Hussein Obama is no Douglas MacArthur, and before you can say "Hyundai!," mad dog Kim is herding sheepish powers, regional and beyond, to seek the shelter of Chinese hegemony.
Now why, in view of this, should Wen Jiabao say boo to Kim Jong-il? Of course he didn't. He saved saying boo, albeit gently, to President Lee, who in turn said that he expected everybody to "have wisdom on this issue," which is code for "let it ride."
So the world is letting 46 South Korean conscripts ride, who weren't looking for trouble, and makes a fuss instead about nine Turkish volunteers off Gaza, who were looking for trouble, big time. If you ever wondered whose nukes scare people, Israel's or North Korea's, wonder no more.