It is worrying that the crisis in the Middle East, though every bit as dangerous, has sidelined the issue of North Korean missile tests. The UN Security Council, though, has passed a unanimous resolution condemning the North Korean tests, and has called on Pyongyang to suspend its missile program and return to the six-party talks.
And it has also called on all UN member states to "exercise vigilance" to prevent any transfer to or from North Korea any missiles or materials that could be used for weapons of mass destruction. But Pyongyang remains defiant.
In a recent interview on Australian television, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill put much emphasis on the unanimous nature of the council's resolution, particularly China's endorsement of it. He indicated that during his diplomatic visits to Beijing at the time of the crisis created by the missile tests, he sensed growing disappointment and frustration with Pyongyang over its dangerous antics.
This implied that at some point of time China's patience might run out, leading them to curtail their economic and political support of the Kim Jong-il regime.
This could, however, bring down the regime and the country, creating a flood of refugees crossing across the border into China and South Korea. According to US analysts and officials, this is China's biggest nightmare, which accounts for its reluctance to take harsh measures against its neighbor. In that event it wouldn't be prudent to assume that Beijing would do anything that might create instability or chaos in the North.
This is evident in the measured Chinese support of the UN resolution -- minus all-out sanctions and threatened use of force under Chapter 7 of the UN charter -- if Pyongyang were to refuse compliance. And North Korea has already rejected the resolution calling it a "despicable" act, and threatening to continue missile tests into the future.
There is an argument, though, that China will have to eventually constrain the North lest it push Japan into an all-out nationalist and militant mode, with expanded military power, including nuclear weapons. Some US analysts and officials strongly believe this. Indeed, some senior Japanese ministers talked of a pre-emptive strike against Pyongyang's launching sites.
Beijing probably wouldn't like to see that happen. As the retiring US Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick told an interviewer, "The Chinese, I don't think, want the North Koreans to cross a red line on nuclear weaponry because they're afraid of the effect on South Korea and Japan and regional security."
This might be so. But North Korea also gives China important leverage in political and strategic affairs in the region. This puts China in the center of things. Both North and South Korea are already virtually part of China's strategic zone. And everybody looks to Beijing for a durable solution.
Despite Pyongyang's seeming indifference to Beijing's signals, it is hard to imagine it going alone if China were to decree otherwise, considering its overwhelming dependence on Chinese food, energy and other forms of aid, not to of speak of political support.
Something, therefore, doesn't seem quite right when Beijing gives the impression that it has very little leverage in Pyongyang and is as much a prisoner of its madness as everyone else.
As for China's presumed worry about Japan's military revival from Pyongyang's missile and nuclear capability, it might be so. But it is important to remember that China's own projection of regional power is fueling concern to the point that it is now regarded in Tokyo as a potential threat to Japan's security. Therefore, the China-Japan relationship has its own dynamics, though North Korea is certainly an aggravating factor.
Sometimes one gets the feeling that US analysts and officials tend to substitute their own view of things for how Beijing might be thinking.
Zoellick's interview with an Australian journalist was a case in point when he said, "Will the Chinese recognize that the status quo may not hold in North Korea in part because it is a state that lives off illegitimate activities? It lives off counterfeiting, it lives off money laundering, it lives off narcotics. For darn sure, it can't live off proliferation."
"We've got to keep pressuring the Chinese [to]? build a legitimate state," he said.
Well, that might not be Beijing's view of things. Because legitimacy is a double-edged sword that could bring into question China's own political and economic system. An important feature of Beijing's foreign policy is to, by and large, ignore the legitimacy question in dealing with all sorts of regimes.
Besides, China is unlikely to welcome US intrusion into building up a new "legitimate state" in North Korea, peacefully or otherwise. The bitter memories of the Korean War -- when the two countries faced off a military stalemate -- has plagued the Korean Peninsula ever since.
It is, therefore, a leap of faith to imagine that the US and Chinese interests will come to converge on the North Korean issue. Some limited cooperation might be forthcoming to keep things under control, like the re-convening of the six-nation talks at some point.
It is imperative that Pyongyang desist from stoking the missile fires. But China alone has the necessary leverage on Pyongyang to bring it about. And this is unlikely given how useful an unpredictable North Korea is for China.
Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.
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