Wednesday, March 23, 2005
The China card
Condaleeza Rice just went to China, and she was not easy on the Chinese. She went on about Taiwan, democracy, and other topics calculated to annoy her hosts.
Then, suddenly, it looks as if Europe may not resume the sale of advanced weapons to China as quickly as hoped in Beijing.
Now, suddenly, China is playing ball in North Korea.
TigerHawk believes he smells a deal. We know that we cannot stop the Europeans from selling arms to China forever, but we can slow down the lifting of the embargo. Looked at this way, the European arms embargo card is an American strategic asset, but a wasting asset. Condi may have played the embargo card in Beijing, and offered a deal: Get North Korea back to the table, or wait another couple of years (or to the end of the Bush Administration) to get the European arms embargo lifted.
If the NoKos start negotiating and the Europeans start selling arms to China, you read it here first!
UPDATE: JunkYardBlog took a shot at this post for having failed to identify China's anti-Taiwan secession law as the cause of Europe's waffling on lifting the arms embargo. My own opinion is that the Europeans do not care about Taiwan and think our security guarantee of the island is destabilizing. However, the law gives Europe a pretext for backing away from arms sales to China -- in effect, the Europeans now have a face-saving way to throw us this bone. I wrote more on this subject this (Thursday) morning.
There has also been some discussion in the comments section about whether it would be a "good deal" to trade the lifting of the European arms embargo for pressure on the Norks. That is not what I hypothesized, and it is a false choice. My point is that the European embargo is inevitably going to be lifted sooner or later, but in any event within the next year or two. That means that the best we can do is convince the Europeans to give us a card to play in the form of a delay, which is what they did. My hypothesis, and it is only a hypothesis, is that we signalled to China that we would reduce the pressure on Europe over the embargo if China got the Norks in line. If I'm right, we used a wasting asset to strengthen the Chinese commitment to reign in Pyongyang. I think that's smart diplomacy.
10 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Mar 23, 10:39:00 AM:
Color me unimpressed.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-03/23/content_2731630.htm
"On China-DPRK ties, Wen and Pak both vowed to further the countries' 'friendly cooperative ties,' including economic cooperation and coordination on major issues, during talks here onTuesday.
"Relations between China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have seen 'sound progress' with the direct care from the two countries' leaders, Wen told Pak in the Great Hall ofthe People in Beijing."
Seems to me that China is bribing the Norks back to the negotiating table through economic aid. And once back at the negotiating table absolutely nothing will be accomplished -- but everyone can say that Pyongyang is at least negotiating so there is no basis for imposing sanctions.
For a good analysis of China's role in the nuclear talks read this:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg1832.cfm
By , at
Wed Mar 23, 10:40:00 AM:
Bad link at the bottom there: http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg1832.cfm
By , at
Wed Mar 23, 10:42:00 AM:
OK I give up. Just go to Heritage.org's Asia page and click on "Does Beijing Approve of North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions?" by John J. Tkacik, Jr.
By , at
Wed Mar 23, 11:44:00 AM:
Score another one for the Pajamahadeen.
By 
L. C. Staples, at
Wed Mar 23, 11:58:00 AM:
I sincerely hope that Miss Rice is not so stupid as to offer the Chinese something as tangible as access to European weapons, in return for something as ethereal as "getting North Korea back to the table."
By , at
Wed Mar 23, 12:13:00 PM:
If getting North Korea back to the table is the best Condi could arrange, I must say it's a pretty poor deal. China has the ability to shut down North Korea and getting China to take the measures which will bring about that outcome is the ultimate goal. Anything else is nice, but in the end inconsequential.
I understand that getting something is better than nothing, given the inevitableness of the EU lifting the embargo, but still, I'm afraid there is nothing to brag about on this one.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Mar 23, 12:57:00 PM:
If we could actually prevent the Europeans from lifting their arms embargo, I would agree that it is a bad deal. However, I think that the forces in Europe that is going to lift the embargo soon. Perhaps not this year, but soon, unless China does something really stupid. That is what I meant when I said that our ability to influence the European embargo is a "wasting asset." Since this card, if you will, is going away sometime soon, we might as well get something for it. I stand by my guess -- and it is a guess -- that we are getting leverage from over the Norks (a better term than "NoKos," by the way, so I am going to use it henceforth).
I should add that I think our guarantee of Taiwan's security is also untenable in the long term. A remilitarized Japan might be able back that guarantee, much the way the British backed up the Monroe Doctrine, but I don't see how we will be able to sustain it credibly over the next couple of decades in the absence of significant support from other players in the Western Pacific. That's another post, though.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Mar 23, 04:18:00 PM:
I came back from lunch and realized that my last comment was totally incoherent on account of screwed up editing. Sorry.
I doubt that Asian countries, other than perhaps Japan, have the leverage with Europe to overwhelm the ambition of its arms manufacturers. Most of Europe is too desperate for employment in any industry. The Japanese have some clout to add, but all the other countries in the region are just little gnats. The Japanese are probably not delighted that the Euros will be selling advanced arms to China, but they are even less delighted by the nuclear Norks. If my guess at a deal with China is on target, then I would also guess that Japan would support it.
By , at
Thu Mar 24, 01:36:00 PM:
Jon, they actually renamed most favored nation (MFN) status several years ago because it actually means almost the precise opposite of what that designation implied. It's now called "normal trade relations" which is a lot more accurate since it signifies that it's no big deal and carries no real special privileges.
In any event, I think it's extremely unlikely that the US will relax its arms embargo on China in any way.
By , at
Sat Mar 26, 12:28:00 PM:
