This entry was posted on 10/16/2006 10:52 AM and is filed under Comments.
North Korea
North Korea is in the news now for sure, and here is some background about the issues. Either way it has an impact, not so much directly on the security of the United States as it does on the security of our allies in the region, Japan and South Korea. At the same time there are certain creative possibilities for the American diplomacy that are now open with Kim Jong Il’s move, and should be explored. The immediate diplomatic and political loser from this affair is China, which is in a no-win situation. On the one hand China has tried hard to act as a responsible power and a stakeholder in the international order and a great power that can be counted upon to act with due gravity, in concert with her partners. On the other hand, China is the only external ally of the North Korean regime, certainly the only one after the fall of the Soviet Union. North Korea, which is economically a basket case, depends very heavily on China for its energy and foodstuffs—and we are talking about a country in which it is estimated that over a million people have literally starved to death over the past few years. China cannot afford to lose the image of a regional power of the first order that can be disobeyed with impunity, and China was very openly and—on her own admission—brazenly disobeyed by North Korea’s behavior. On the other hand, for ideological and geopolitical reasons China is loath to see the fall http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=3920 of the regime in Pyongyang. China cannot afford to see North Korea go and therefore could not agree to a seriously stiff package of multilateral sanctions at the Security Council of the
