In fossicking through boxes of remainded books in a small, dingy, out of the way bookshop, GuamDiary came across the proceedings of a conference for a new direction in US Korea policy, held 33 years ago in New York City.
Reading through the conference's official transcript, we see that little has fundamentally changed in US policy towards North Korea.
Let's first place the conference in its historical setting. Jimmy Carter had just become president. Park Chung hee the South Korean dictator and US ally sat comfortably in the Blue House in Seoul. President Nixon's call for reduction of US troops strength in South Korea, to bolster troops levels in the US debilitating war in Vietnam, had set Park on a charm offensive to bribe the US Congress. A crisis of confidence erupted known as 'Koreagate".
The new American president called for a rethinking on US policy on Korea. An 'ad hoc' committee composed of a Nobelist, university activists, clergy, a UN consultant, and an activist seized the moment to call for an international conference to be held in New York from 1 April to 3 April 1977.
To that purpose, they placed an ad in the 'New York Times'. The response and the furor it aroused was more than the 'Committee for a new direction for US Korea Policy' could have expected.
The call bore the headline 'Korea--Our Responsbility'. Its brief clearly stated the Committee's case: the cruel rule of the Park dictatorship; the blantant violations of human rights and the imprisonment of and assassination attempts on the lives of its opponents; the role of the US backed by its military of propping up Park Chung Hee; the documented reports of Park's attempts to subvert the US constitution through bribery of elected government officials;the rising tide of popular resistance of South Koreans oppossed to General Park's rule also raised the possibility of renewed war by Park to maintain power; the presence of US nuclear weapons in South Korea, among other issues.
The Committe called for the removal of the nuclear weapons and the troops and weapons and paramilitary forces, as well as denying all aid and assistance to Park Chung Hee. The Committee took Carter at his word: a complete reexamination of US Korea policy was in order with the view to a peaceful solution to the mounting crisis between the US and South Korea and a hope for a peaceful conclusion of the Korean War.
The public reaction to the Committee's 'NYT's' ad was swift: on one hand, the Committee was denounced as 'Communist', but more surprising, on the other hand, they got strong public support and encouragement.
Consequently, in a whirlwind of activity, the Conference began on 1 April 1977, across the street from the UN, with delegates from 9 countries, including South Korea. Japan sent 3 members of parliament. A welcome surprise was the presence of South Korean dissidents living in the US and West Germany whose speeches and talks broke the Park dominance of the Korean media. They included high ranking diplomats, senior army and navy officers, former KCIA agents, clergy, businessmen, university professors, writers and poets, journalists, and a world renowned Korean composer kidnapped and tortured by Park's CIA.
Although members of the US government were invited to attend, no one sent a staff member or came in person. Senator Ted Kennedy sent an encouraging note. Rear Admiral Eugene LaRoque submitted a statement to the conference. The German SPD had an observer at the proceedings. And the noted Korea expert Gregory Henderson then of Tufts Fletcher School of Diplomacy attended as a special guest.
Among the delegates, the following names are easily reconisable today: Bruce Cumings, Jon Halliday, Michael Klare, and the reverend James Stentzel
In all, during three days, the delegates discussed and debated a new direction for US policy towards Korea, from various standpoints - social, political, economic, and military. Judging by the transcripts, the discussions were lively and informative.
It is a pity that time and space limit GuamDiary from giving its readers a taste of the quality and the flavour of the talks and the question & answer sessions.
The conference did much to energise the Korean Americans to redouble efforts to influence change in South Korea in the US.
Suffice to say, at the end, the conference sent a telegramme to president Carter, encouraging him to revise US policy towards Korea as he had promised. The conference urged its delegates, once they returned home, to support the struggle of the people of South Korea in opposing dictator Park, to actively emphasize the defence of human rights - a cornerstone of Carter's foreign policy - when it came to South Korea, call for the recall of US nuclear armaments from a very tense divided Korean peninsula, and withdraw US troops. In brief, the conference simply promised to avocate for a new US Korea policy along the lines Carter was proposing.
The conference held 5 news conferences at the end of three days of talks. The Japanese and Korean and Korean American press, as well as Mexican, French, British, and German media were present. In fact, press conferences were not only held in English, but in Korea and Japanese. Yet the US mainstream media boycotted the conference and as for coverage, remained silent as a tomb.
It was as though, according to the conference coordinator, that no one in the American government cared about forging a new Korea policy but Jimmy Carter.
Monday, December 6, 2010
US North Korea clerisy redux
Another GuamDiary reader wonders why we shoot our darts at US' North Korea clerisy. By any conventional standard, these clercs--by education, training, and experience--represent the 'best and the brightest' on advising US policy towards North Korea.
First, the 'best and the brightest' is a loaded term. If you weigh it by David Halbstram's measure, it is a watchword that captures the high degree of hubris, condescension, moral blindness, and a body of a 'body of truths' which do not bear up well under scrutiny.
Moreover,GuamDiary's 'beef' with America's North Korean clerisy is that it is a closed circuit programme of 'newspeak' and homogenised opinion within a very narrow spectrum of admitted differences of opinion.
Its cast of characters reminds us of a revolving door of experts, advisors, and analysts who go in and out of government, and who are the same talking heads on television, in print, or invited to conferences. They represent received opinion. But varied views they do not hold. Independent thought is forsaken for good paying posts in think tanks, universities, and government or in publishing or prestigious journals or the mainstream press. But they do toe the government line.
Saying this, GuamDiary hears an objection: the clerisy does admit new members. Undoubtedly according to this rule of thumb: can they be coopted? If they can, they gain a seat at the table; if they cannot, they're marginalised or as it is often the case, they are excluded and become the voices in the desert that few hear.
This clerisy play the 'eternel virgin', modest to a fault. They remain virga intacta in thought and deed.
On North Korea the chorus is frightfully uninote. Add a little balance to the mantra 'North Korea evil, North Korea bad', is tantamount to madness or to high treason.
The clerisy never strays unless ir nourishes a deathwish to self destruct a career, creature comforts, and the honours ideological loyalty obtain. Money and the ego money are strong incentives not to stray from the hand that feeds you.
GuamDiary in criticising them calls for openness and other voices. We do say that the clash of ideas in an open market of opinion is healthy. It may not change one's moral compass but it does let in fresh thinking. And this is a good thing for an open society which the US says it is.
Otherwise, as GuamDiary continues to document, unequal access to influence policy and public opinion has had corrosive consequences of past and current US policy towards North Korea.
GuamDiary keeps referring to the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] report on US policy towards Korea. It is a sterling example of group think. It is unanimous in its opinion representing the hours of conversation of the 'best and brightest' of US Korea experts and advisors coming from the diplomatic service, the military, the spy agencies, the university, and the think tank. As window dressing, it allows for very narrow and minor quibbles, but in the end, it is a solid and set concrete advice to the Obama administration.
The clerisy's advise and consent reflects a bankruptcy of ideas: the report's conclusions are an about face and an embrace of the Cold War policy of 'roll back' North Korea. Their collective opinion bolsters a White House policy which is intent on forcing North Korea to the brink of collapse or to war.
And events today in a divided Korea parallel are swaddled in hazy memories. They strinkly recall conditions that happened on the eve of the War which broke out sixty years ago.
Wikileaks release of US diplomatic cables on North Korea offer new space for reflexion and rethinking of policy. The US media, the talking heads, the clerisy, and above all, the US government puff out their chests of hail the well good fellow or Little Jack Horner's cry when he pulled out a plum, 'look what a good buy am I'.
And now, gentle reader, you may begin to understand why GuamDiary calls for broader and more open discussions on North Korea and critises the US North Korea clerisy.
First, the 'best and the brightest' is a loaded term. If you weigh it by David Halbstram's measure, it is a watchword that captures the high degree of hubris, condescension, moral blindness, and a body of a 'body of truths' which do not bear up well under scrutiny.
Moreover,GuamDiary's 'beef' with America's North Korean clerisy is that it is a closed circuit programme of 'newspeak' and homogenised opinion within a very narrow spectrum of admitted differences of opinion.
Its cast of characters reminds us of a revolving door of experts, advisors, and analysts who go in and out of government, and who are the same talking heads on television, in print, or invited to conferences. They represent received opinion. But varied views they do not hold. Independent thought is forsaken for good paying posts in think tanks, universities, and government or in publishing or prestigious journals or the mainstream press. But they do toe the government line.
Saying this, GuamDiary hears an objection: the clerisy does admit new members. Undoubtedly according to this rule of thumb: can they be coopted? If they can, they gain a seat at the table; if they cannot, they're marginalised or as it is often the case, they are excluded and become the voices in the desert that few hear.
This clerisy play the 'eternel virgin', modest to a fault. They remain virga intacta in thought and deed.
On North Korea the chorus is frightfully uninote. Add a little balance to the mantra 'North Korea evil, North Korea bad', is tantamount to madness or to high treason.
The clerisy never strays unless ir nourishes a deathwish to self destruct a career, creature comforts, and the honours ideological loyalty obtain. Money and the ego money are strong incentives not to stray from the hand that feeds you.
GuamDiary in criticising them calls for openness and other voices. We do say that the clash of ideas in an open market of opinion is healthy. It may not change one's moral compass but it does let in fresh thinking. And this is a good thing for an open society which the US says it is.
Otherwise, as GuamDiary continues to document, unequal access to influence policy and public opinion has had corrosive consequences of past and current US policy towards North Korea.
GuamDiary keeps referring to the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] report on US policy towards Korea. It is a sterling example of group think. It is unanimous in its opinion representing the hours of conversation of the 'best and brightest' of US Korea experts and advisors coming from the diplomatic service, the military, the spy agencies, the university, and the think tank. As window dressing, it allows for very narrow and minor quibbles, but in the end, it is a solid and set concrete advice to the Obama administration.
The clerisy's advise and consent reflects a bankruptcy of ideas: the report's conclusions are an about face and an embrace of the Cold War policy of 'roll back' North Korea. Their collective opinion bolsters a White House policy which is intent on forcing North Korea to the brink of collapse or to war.
And events today in a divided Korea parallel are swaddled in hazy memories. They strinkly recall conditions that happened on the eve of the War which broke out sixty years ago.
Wikileaks release of US diplomatic cables on North Korea offer new space for reflexion and rethinking of policy. The US media, the talking heads, the clerisy, and above all, the US government puff out their chests of hail the well good fellow or Little Jack Horner's cry when he pulled out a plum, 'look what a good buy am I'.
And now, gentle reader, you may begin to understand why GuamDiary calls for broader and more open discussions on North Korea and critises the US North Korea clerisy.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Succession
Recently a reader of GuamDiary asked a question about why our blog has not broached the question of succession in North Korea. Our reader's curiosity was raised by what is happening in Egypt.
The question of succession in North Korea has been for all intents and purposes settled in North Korea. Kim Jong il, after much negotiation within the military and political power structure, has anointed his youngest and third son Kim Jung eun as his successor. Admittedly, we know little about this young man of 26 [we are not even sure of his actual age]; we speculate that he had his secondary schooling in Switzerland, and so, it seems as though he has knowledge of German, English, and possibly French; he has familiarity with ways of a capitalist society. Certainly, as grandson of Kim Il Sung, he has had the best of an elite education North Korea has to offer its elite. For that matter, he may know Russian and Chinese.
We do hear from visitors who go to the North from South Korea and the US and China, that he is cutting his teeth on a rigorous programme of leadership, one mapped out for his father before him. Owing to Kim Jong il's precarious health, Kim Jung eun may be on a faster track, but we cannot say for sure. We can safely posit that he is learning the ropes.
Promoted to a four star general in September 2010, he has little or no military training we know of. In this area, his aunt and uncle will guide him and the military leadership as well as the Workers party cadre, are on board with Kim Jong il's choice.
Everyone and his mother and father in the Westhave written scripts of disaster if and when Kim Jong eun attains power. North Korea will implode, refugees will flood China and South Korea, so on and on. But those accounts of possible turns of events remain wishful thinking but no one can predict with the any degree of certainty or credibility that some people invest Nostradumus' tea leaves that what they are reading is true.
If anthing, it is an ackowledgment that they have not know the history of North Korea nor why Kim Il Sung rose to lead it. Looking at photos of Kim Jung eun, the eye cannot escape the uncanny resemblance of him and his grandfather. Physically, he will be a constant reminder of the sainted aura Kim Il Sung has in the North, and if anything this will bolster the younger Kim's image among North Koreans.
Let's turn to Egypt, as a reader asked. Hosni Mubarak is 83, in poor health, and the results of recent elections with ballot box stuffing and jailing of opponents will bring him another term. Will he live longer enough to serve a full term? Rumour in the streets and bazaars have it that Mubarak's son Gamal will assume the mantle of 'rais' [head of state or president]. Maybe yes. Maybe no. What is certain, the army which is the real power in Egypt will not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or any of its surrogates to attain power.
So if it's not Gamal Mubarak, it will be a general or a candidate of the military who will succeed Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian history does not confer the same cachet of authority on the Mubarak progeny as the Kims have in North Korea. So, although our reader may see a parallel in the matter of succession, it does not hold up well.
The question of succession in North Korea has been for all intents and purposes settled in North Korea. Kim Jong il, after much negotiation within the military and political power structure, has anointed his youngest and third son Kim Jung eun as his successor. Admittedly, we know little about this young man of 26 [we are not even sure of his actual age]; we speculate that he had his secondary schooling in Switzerland, and so, it seems as though he has knowledge of German, English, and possibly French; he has familiarity with ways of a capitalist society. Certainly, as grandson of Kim Il Sung, he has had the best of an elite education North Korea has to offer its elite. For that matter, he may know Russian and Chinese.
We do hear from visitors who go to the North from South Korea and the US and China, that he is cutting his teeth on a rigorous programme of leadership, one mapped out for his father before him. Owing to Kim Jong il's precarious health, Kim Jung eun may be on a faster track, but we cannot say for sure. We can safely posit that he is learning the ropes.
Promoted to a four star general in September 2010, he has little or no military training we know of. In this area, his aunt and uncle will guide him and the military leadership as well as the Workers party cadre, are on board with Kim Jong il's choice.
Everyone and his mother and father in the Westhave written scripts of disaster if and when Kim Jong eun attains power. North Korea will implode, refugees will flood China and South Korea, so on and on. But those accounts of possible turns of events remain wishful thinking but no one can predict with the any degree of certainty or credibility that some people invest Nostradumus' tea leaves that what they are reading is true.
If anthing, it is an ackowledgment that they have not know the history of North Korea nor why Kim Il Sung rose to lead it. Looking at photos of Kim Jung eun, the eye cannot escape the uncanny resemblance of him and his grandfather. Physically, he will be a constant reminder of the sainted aura Kim Il Sung has in the North, and if anything this will bolster the younger Kim's image among North Koreans.
Let's turn to Egypt, as a reader asked. Hosni Mubarak is 83, in poor health, and the results of recent elections with ballot box stuffing and jailing of opponents will bring him another term. Will he live longer enough to serve a full term? Rumour in the streets and bazaars have it that Mubarak's son Gamal will assume the mantle of 'rais' [head of state or president]. Maybe yes. Maybe no. What is certain, the army which is the real power in Egypt will not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or any of its surrogates to attain power.
So if it's not Gamal Mubarak, it will be a general or a candidate of the military who will succeed Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian history does not confer the same cachet of authority on the Mubarak progeny as the Kims have in North Korea. So, although our reader may see a parallel in the matter of succession, it does not hold up well.
'All you need to know' about North Korea
America's NPR [National Public Radio] offers every Friday evening 'All you need to know', a weekly public affairs programme.
Jon Meecham, a Pulitzer prize author, is one of its anchors. On 3 December 2010, he talked with Charles Armstrong, director of the Centre for Korean Research at Columbia University.
Professor Armstrong is of mixed Korean ancestry. His books on Korea have been well received; he is a frequent guest at the New York Korea Society; and has travelled often visited South and North Koreas. Although not much publicised, the US government has sollicited his expert opinion on Korea.
Meechan alloted ten minutes to Armstong on the Wikileaks release of US cables on North Korea, the succession of power in the North, and China,among other matters. GuamDiary wonders if a sixth of an hour is d'all you need to know' about North Korea.
Hardly!
Armstrong is soft spoken, even thoughtful. He doesn't strike you as a man of such great learning and sophistication that he would easily abandon any pretense of critical thinking. Yet, answering Meecham's predictable line of questioning, he dutifully recites the act of faith of recent events in the two Koreans as written by the US and ROK.
On the question of the shelling of the island of Yeonpyeong he voiced dropped when he made mention of the presence of a large flotilla of South Korean and US warships along the NLL [Northern Limit Line], using live fire. Live fire which may very well have fallen in North Korean territory resulting in a return of fire by the North.
Armstrong linked the shelling to bolster the image of the wet behind the ears recently promoted to a four star general Kim Jung un, Kim Jong il's youngest son and chosen successor. He saw this attack by the North, the first in 47 years since the signing of the Armistice agreement, as something to do with the sinking of the 'Cheonan', but without any elaboration.
Armstrong didn't think the Wikileaks relase would do much harm, nor would China exercise much restraint on the North even though it has been quietly turning it into a client state as Beijing's economic engine expands.
Meechan fed Armstrong the usual pablum questions on North Korea. He has a pleasant personality and wears his cloth of the American south's curtesy and civility well to his cut as a journalist and editor. Recently, the 'All to you need to know' host filled in for Charlie Rose. On that programme, David Sanger and Sean Shane of the 'New York Times' and former diplomat James Rubin, an Iran expert, discussed the Wikileaks 'bomb'.
At that time, the jabber on North Korea kept within the 'circle of convergent' opinion which has the US government stamp of approval. Were that the discussion pushed to the limits of the issue, raising embarassing questions, well...that would be too good to be true.
What is true and crystal clear is that 'all you need to know about North Korea' is a pretense of critical and independent thinking. Hardly ever would those critical of US policy towards North Korea be panelists. For, independent thought, critical of US military and political authority, may be and is viewed as unpatriotic, if not treasonous.
Different standpoints may and often elicit questions. And finally the last thing, the US' and its North Korean clerisy's might be challenged and they would then have to defend their views, which in the mainstream go unchallenged.
And why should the clerisy show backbone and moral courage to hold different and differing and at times irritating views? Well what comes to mind by the way of explanation is from Upton Sinclair:'It is difficult to to get a man [or a woman] to understand something when his [purse] depends on his not understanding it'. And that is how it seems that we 'all need to know' about official and officious opinions about North Korea!
Jon Meecham, a Pulitzer prize author, is one of its anchors. On 3 December 2010, he talked with Charles Armstrong, director of the Centre for Korean Research at Columbia University.
Professor Armstrong is of mixed Korean ancestry. His books on Korea have been well received; he is a frequent guest at the New York Korea Society; and has travelled often visited South and North Koreas. Although not much publicised, the US government has sollicited his expert opinion on Korea.
Meechan alloted ten minutes to Armstong on the Wikileaks release of US cables on North Korea, the succession of power in the North, and China,among other matters. GuamDiary wonders if a sixth of an hour is d'all you need to know' about North Korea.
Hardly!
Armstrong is soft spoken, even thoughtful. He doesn't strike you as a man of such great learning and sophistication that he would easily abandon any pretense of critical thinking. Yet, answering Meecham's predictable line of questioning, he dutifully recites the act of faith of recent events in the two Koreans as written by the US and ROK.
On the question of the shelling of the island of Yeonpyeong he voiced dropped when he made mention of the presence of a large flotilla of South Korean and US warships along the NLL [Northern Limit Line], using live fire. Live fire which may very well have fallen in North Korean territory resulting in a return of fire by the North.
Armstrong linked the shelling to bolster the image of the wet behind the ears recently promoted to a four star general Kim Jung un, Kim Jong il's youngest son and chosen successor. He saw this attack by the North, the first in 47 years since the signing of the Armistice agreement, as something to do with the sinking of the 'Cheonan', but without any elaboration.
Armstrong didn't think the Wikileaks relase would do much harm, nor would China exercise much restraint on the North even though it has been quietly turning it into a client state as Beijing's economic engine expands.
Meechan fed Armstrong the usual pablum questions on North Korea. He has a pleasant personality and wears his cloth of the American south's curtesy and civility well to his cut as a journalist and editor. Recently, the 'All to you need to know' host filled in for Charlie Rose. On that programme, David Sanger and Sean Shane of the 'New York Times' and former diplomat James Rubin, an Iran expert, discussed the Wikileaks 'bomb'.
At that time, the jabber on North Korea kept within the 'circle of convergent' opinion which has the US government stamp of approval. Were that the discussion pushed to the limits of the issue, raising embarassing questions, well...that would be too good to be true.
What is true and crystal clear is that 'all you need to know about North Korea' is a pretense of critical and independent thinking. Hardly ever would those critical of US policy towards North Korea be panelists. For, independent thought, critical of US military and political authority, may be and is viewed as unpatriotic, if not treasonous.
Different standpoints may and often elicit questions. And finally the last thing, the US' and its North Korean clerisy's might be challenged and they would then have to defend their views, which in the mainstream go unchallenged.
And why should the clerisy show backbone and moral courage to hold different and differing and at times irritating views? Well what comes to mind by the way of explanation is from Upton Sinclair:'It is difficult to to get a man [or a woman] to understand something when his [purse] depends on his not understanding it'. And that is how it seems that we 'all need to know' about official and officious opinions about North Korea!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
North Korea: teeth to China's lips
In today's 'Financial Times of London' [2 December 2010] ran an op ed by its correspondent David Pilling: 'Beijing is not about to prise lips from teeth'. He says more or less what he wants to say without explaining why China has used the metaphor 'lips to teeth'.
During his visit to Pyongyang in the 1980's, Deng Xiao ping assured his host Kim Il Sung that China stands firmly behind North Korea. He quoted this Southern Sung saying as a cautionary tale as to why China was and is North Korea's ally.
It is interesting with all the China hands scurrying in and out of government service in the corridors of power in Washington, little interest has been paid to Deng's remarks. It is a reminder how curiously uninterested the chattering classes here are when it comes to history.
A quick history lesson is in order: As the Ming army threated the Southern Sung dynasty, it appealed to the Northern Sung to join forces, in order to rebuff and defeat the growing advances of the Ming. The Northern Sung refused to become the lips that would protect the Southern Sung's teeth. The moral of this tale is simple:
the Northern Sung's deaf response to the Southern Sung call led to the triumph of the Ming and the destruction of the two Sung kingdoms.
China has learnt it history well. It won't contenance a house divided. It takes to heart Lincoln's call that a house united will prevail against all weather. Substitute the US and its ally South Korea for the Ming, and China and North Korea for united Sung forces. And, thus, the message is loud and clear: China will stand tall with North Korea.
Furthermore Helene Cooper in the Sunday 'New York Times' [28 November 2010] has an interesting piece in the 'Week in Review' section. Policy makers in Obama's White House would profit from reading 'The trouble with asking China to act like the US'.
As GuamDiary has long stressed that China has no desire to act as Washington's water boy. And for obvious reasons: ask the question 'qui bono?' Certainly,China does. And it finds Washington's reasoning uninviting and unwelcome.
Chinese volunteer forces did not enter the Korean War for a jolly, good time to battle the Yankee imperial aggressors. They came in support of retreating North Korean because they did not and still do not want a hostile US and South Korean presence on its borders. And for that fact, neither would Russia which also share a common border with North Korea.
The combined North Korean and Chinese volunteers turned the tide against MacArthur, and 'rolled back' the US led UN forces to the 38 parallel where they remain today.
Sixty years later, nothing has changed in this standoff.
Pilling quotes John Delury of the Asia for his views. Delury simply states the obvious: China's consistent message that it will not abandon North Korea.
GuamDiary, here, wish to mention as a contrast of opionion the name of to Asia Society's resident Korea expert Scott Synder. Synder is the 'rapporteur' of a recent CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] study on US policy towards Korea. In brief, its recommendations -- unanimously agreed to by 24 of America's Korea specialists in and out of government -- call for a return to the Truman doctrine of 'rolling back' North Korea. In other words, it sins on the side of overthrowing Kim Jong il & co. by any means possible. This hoary solution, as GuamDiary noted, is not only bankrupt but it is a return to pre Korean conditions which threaten renewal of military conflict on the divided Korean peninsula.
Pelling also consulted the recently much sought opionion of Brian Myers who spent eight years trolling North Korean literature and propaganda. Myers teaches at a South Korean university. He has a jaundice view on the North, and to him, it is the reincarnation of Hirohito's Japanese militarism. Yet, he does not see China leaving North Korea twisting in the wind.
Lazy policy makers leave the field wide open to 'experts' who oddly enough are so ideologically honed that they mistake, as the French say, 'midi pour quatorze heures', in other words, complicate a matter where clearer choices seem clearer.
During his visit to Pyongyang in the 1980's, Deng Xiao ping assured his host Kim Il Sung that China stands firmly behind North Korea. He quoted this Southern Sung saying as a cautionary tale as to why China was and is North Korea's ally.
It is interesting with all the China hands scurrying in and out of government service in the corridors of power in Washington, little interest has been paid to Deng's remarks. It is a reminder how curiously uninterested the chattering classes here are when it comes to history.
A quick history lesson is in order: As the Ming army threated the Southern Sung dynasty, it appealed to the Northern Sung to join forces, in order to rebuff and defeat the growing advances of the Ming. The Northern Sung refused to become the lips that would protect the Southern Sung's teeth. The moral of this tale is simple:
the Northern Sung's deaf response to the Southern Sung call led to the triumph of the Ming and the destruction of the two Sung kingdoms.
China has learnt it history well. It won't contenance a house divided. It takes to heart Lincoln's call that a house united will prevail against all weather. Substitute the US and its ally South Korea for the Ming, and China and North Korea for united Sung forces. And, thus, the message is loud and clear: China will stand tall with North Korea.
Furthermore Helene Cooper in the Sunday 'New York Times' [28 November 2010] has an interesting piece in the 'Week in Review' section. Policy makers in Obama's White House would profit from reading 'The trouble with asking China to act like the US'.
As GuamDiary has long stressed that China has no desire to act as Washington's water boy. And for obvious reasons: ask the question 'qui bono?' Certainly,China does. And it finds Washington's reasoning uninviting and unwelcome.
Chinese volunteer forces did not enter the Korean War for a jolly, good time to battle the Yankee imperial aggressors. They came in support of retreating North Korean because they did not and still do not want a hostile US and South Korean presence on its borders. And for that fact, neither would Russia which also share a common border with North Korea.
The combined North Korean and Chinese volunteers turned the tide against MacArthur, and 'rolled back' the US led UN forces to the 38 parallel where they remain today.
Sixty years later, nothing has changed in this standoff.
Pilling quotes John Delury of the Asia for his views. Delury simply states the obvious: China's consistent message that it will not abandon North Korea.
GuamDiary, here, wish to mention as a contrast of opionion the name of to Asia Society's resident Korea expert Scott Synder. Synder is the 'rapporteur' of a recent CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] study on US policy towards Korea. In brief, its recommendations -- unanimously agreed to by 24 of America's Korea specialists in and out of government -- call for a return to the Truman doctrine of 'rolling back' North Korea. In other words, it sins on the side of overthrowing Kim Jong il & co. by any means possible. This hoary solution, as GuamDiary noted, is not only bankrupt but it is a return to pre Korean conditions which threaten renewal of military conflict on the divided Korean peninsula.
Pelling also consulted the recently much sought opionion of Brian Myers who spent eight years trolling North Korean literature and propaganda. Myers teaches at a South Korean university. He has a jaundice view on the North, and to him, it is the reincarnation of Hirohito's Japanese militarism. Yet, he does not see China leaving North Korea twisting in the wind.
Lazy policy makers leave the field wide open to 'experts' who oddly enough are so ideologically honed that they mistake, as the French say, 'midi pour quatorze heures', in other words, complicate a matter where clearer choices seem clearer.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The US chattering class froths at the mouth about North Korea
Listing to or reading in print or online the US chattering class on the Wikileaks release of US diplomatic cables on North Korea, a visitor from another planet would likely think that everyone one was reading from the same script. And they are!
Our ears are bombarded by the same squad of cheerleaders shouting in chorus who shout out or chant to encourage Team America in confronting the 'black hole of Asia'.
The slogans are old; they've hardly changed since the Korean War.
Like the arch villain Fu Manchu's moustache, North Korea looms longer and larger as a threat. Pyongyang's gruesome villanous conduct in shelling the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong borders of the edge of military depravity.
Let's get down to basics: Charlie Rose had retired admiral and former director of national intelligence Dennis Blair on his programme to discuss the fallout of the last Wikileaks releasing some 250.000 US diplomatic cables. On the matter of North Korea, when pressed what US intelligence does know, Blair beat a quick retreat to the bunker of 'sensitive information'. When Rose asked him what Blair did know about North Korea, the retired admiral came up with an oh we have a good general idea. What does that mean? Anyone who takes the time to read the mainstream press' reporting on North Korea could come up with the same answer.
Blair went further: he branded Kim Jong il as a leader of a criminal clan and the head of a mafia state. North Korea is the land of a bloated class of yes men whose greed and corruption know no end. Well, we're no longer in the land of rational thought: we've entered the land of the gut reaction of George W Bush--'I loathe the guy'. Emotions do not necessarily make for good policy. And Bush should know: his distorted view of North Korea gave the final push to North Korea's testing of a nuclear device, thereby catapulting it into the select atomic club of nations!
Listen to Brian Meyers, author of 'The Cleanest Race: how North Koreans see themselves'. After 8 years of parsing the North's literature, songs, and tracts, he comes to the conclusion that the Kim family is cut from the same stone as Japanese militarism and racial superiority.
Or listen to Victor Cha who has visited North Korea many times, whose assessment is somewhat more nuanced but hardly deviates from the Washington party line.
Now, there is much to deplore and dislike about North Korea, but the endless idle and empty chatter which Wikileaks on North Korea has provoked seems ahistorical and irrational and mad at times.
The truth of the matter is easy to understand: if you go against the grain, you're dropped from the circle of influence, fat study grants, entree to juicy government or university posts...in other words, you run the risk of financial loss and being exiled to a gulag of exclusion which may last until you see the error of your ways, the more especially as effects of your betrayal falls equally on the shoulders of your family and the future of your children.
There are other experts on North Korea but since they are outside the circle of the accepted orthoxy, they are hardly heard...at most on small out of the way radio programmes or in mildly left magazines.
Yet slipping through this seemly unporous orthodox opinion is an op ed in the 30 November issue of all places the 'Wall Street Journal'. Edward Luttwak, an American military strategist and historian, thanked former president Jimmy Carter for the role of peacemaker that he played in the past for staying America's nuclear hand from bombing North Korea. [GuamDiary encourages reading Creekmore's 'A moment of crisis: Jimmy Carter's mission to Pyongyang" for the full story.]
In late summer 2010, Carter again went to North Korea on a rescue mission. This time, he escorted back an American sentenced to seven years hard labour and a whopping fine, for having illegally entered North Korea, encouraged by his Evangelical Christian belief to bring Christ to that country.
At that time, Carter met with very high North Korean policy makers who assured him that North Korea was willing to give up its nuclear programme if the US would talk to it. This message fell on deaf ears in the Obama White House.
Alas, Jimmy Carter is a pariah in the US establishment. He is no dupe when it comes to Kim Jong il & co., but he is willing to give diplomacy a chance which runs counter to today's US policy towards North Korea.
Sadly, when it is all said and done, the US chattering class exhibits a high degree of know nothingness on North Korea and is proud of its ignorance.
Our ears are bombarded by the same squad of cheerleaders shouting in chorus who shout out or chant to encourage Team America in confronting the 'black hole of Asia'.
The slogans are old; they've hardly changed since the Korean War.
Like the arch villain Fu Manchu's moustache, North Korea looms longer and larger as a threat. Pyongyang's gruesome villanous conduct in shelling the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong borders of the edge of military depravity.
Let's get down to basics: Charlie Rose had retired admiral and former director of national intelligence Dennis Blair on his programme to discuss the fallout of the last Wikileaks releasing some 250.000 US diplomatic cables. On the matter of North Korea, when pressed what US intelligence does know, Blair beat a quick retreat to the bunker of 'sensitive information'. When Rose asked him what Blair did know about North Korea, the retired admiral came up with an oh we have a good general idea. What does that mean? Anyone who takes the time to read the mainstream press' reporting on North Korea could come up with the same answer.
Blair went further: he branded Kim Jong il as a leader of a criminal clan and the head of a mafia state. North Korea is the land of a bloated class of yes men whose greed and corruption know no end. Well, we're no longer in the land of rational thought: we've entered the land of the gut reaction of George W Bush--'I loathe the guy'. Emotions do not necessarily make for good policy. And Bush should know: his distorted view of North Korea gave the final push to North Korea's testing of a nuclear device, thereby catapulting it into the select atomic club of nations!
Listen to Brian Meyers, author of 'The Cleanest Race: how North Koreans see themselves'. After 8 years of parsing the North's literature, songs, and tracts, he comes to the conclusion that the Kim family is cut from the same stone as Japanese militarism and racial superiority.
Or listen to Victor Cha who has visited North Korea many times, whose assessment is somewhat more nuanced but hardly deviates from the Washington party line.
Now, there is much to deplore and dislike about North Korea, but the endless idle and empty chatter which Wikileaks on North Korea has provoked seems ahistorical and irrational and mad at times.
The truth of the matter is easy to understand: if you go against the grain, you're dropped from the circle of influence, fat study grants, entree to juicy government or university posts...in other words, you run the risk of financial loss and being exiled to a gulag of exclusion which may last until you see the error of your ways, the more especially as effects of your betrayal falls equally on the shoulders of your family and the future of your children.
There are other experts on North Korea but since they are outside the circle of the accepted orthoxy, they are hardly heard...at most on small out of the way radio programmes or in mildly left magazines.
Yet slipping through this seemly unporous orthodox opinion is an op ed in the 30 November issue of all places the 'Wall Street Journal'. Edward Luttwak, an American military strategist and historian, thanked former president Jimmy Carter for the role of peacemaker that he played in the past for staying America's nuclear hand from bombing North Korea. [GuamDiary encourages reading Creekmore's 'A moment of crisis: Jimmy Carter's mission to Pyongyang" for the full story.]
In late summer 2010, Carter again went to North Korea on a rescue mission. This time, he escorted back an American sentenced to seven years hard labour and a whopping fine, for having illegally entered North Korea, encouraged by his Evangelical Christian belief to bring Christ to that country.
At that time, Carter met with very high North Korean policy makers who assured him that North Korea was willing to give up its nuclear programme if the US would talk to it. This message fell on deaf ears in the Obama White House.
Alas, Jimmy Carter is a pariah in the US establishment. He is no dupe when it comes to Kim Jong il & co., but he is willing to give diplomacy a chance which runs counter to today's US policy towards North Korea.
Sadly, when it is all said and done, the US chattering class exhibits a high degree of know nothingness on North Korea and is proud of its ignorance.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Long on educated guesses, short on facts--US cables on North Korea
An obituary lost into today's commentary on the release of more diplomatic cables on North Korea by Wikileaks: the death of former congressman Stephen Solarz at the age of 70. Almost 40 years ago, Solarz became the first American lawmaker to visit North Korea. Many thought that his presence in Pyongyang indicated a change in US policy; it did not; he was the lone Solon who could not initiate a thaw in US North Korean relations.
As more and more leaked US diplomatic material comes to light, the American and international public learn that among US foreign service officers North Korea is called the 'Black Hole of Asia'. This assessment simply confirms what former senior CIA analyst, former US ambassador to South Korea, and former president of the New York based Korea Society,Donald Gregg has been openly saying for years:'North Korea is our biggest intelligence failure'. And the new released cables do not belie Gregg's judgment!
What set the chattering classes buzzing was the tidbit that a Chinese ambassador to a Central Asian republic voiced the opinion that China would look benignly on a unified Korea under the leadership of South Korea. GuamDiary found in the cables opinions that contradicted that assertion. But it was a lean bit of meat for the piranha media to fight over.
GuamDiary does know that diplomats are instructed to write cables so that the infomation conveyed is selective and shaped to serve and bolster US policy. Consequently, the ambassador's thoughts gave Washington hope that it could lean more and more on Beijing to control North Korea. Wrong!
This tantalising bauble now may have the effect of putting China out of its gords, the more especially that there is every geopolitical and historical reason that it runs contrary to the facts.
Helene Cooper, writing in the 'NYT' on Sunday 28 November 2010, noted that the Bush and Obama administrations have been pushing China to do its 'dirty work' in dealing with North Korea. And China has resisted. Today [30 November 2010], Obama rebuffed China's call for emergency talks on quieting war tensions in divided Korea. [See GuamDiary's 'Washington Seoul Tokyo axis trying to stymie China's NK initiative' and 'Wikileaks lifts the veil on US North Korea policy'.]
Closer scrutiny of the facts shows, as GuamDiary observed, that positions are more and more taut, and the situation on the ground look as though the US and South Korea had turned the clock back more than 60 years to the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War.
Simply put: China does not want a hostile presence on its borders. It does not look kindly nor with a gentle wink at a united Korea dominated by Seoul. South Korea's president Lee Myung bek's policy towards North Korea as well as Obama's, militates strongly against such an eventuality.
Although South Korea is an important trading partner with China, trade does not trump political and military reality. Seoul's and Beijing's purposes are at loggerheads.
From the leaked cables we do learn that the Chinese delegate to the six party talks Wu Dawei was his 'country's most incompetent official'; an arrogant Marx spouting former Red Guard 'who knows nothing about North Korea'.
Did not the American foreign service officer ever consider that Beijing was sending Washington a clear signal that it did not consider the US' approach to North Korea's nuclear programme short of incompetency and know nothingness? Beijing may very well have been telegraphing Obama to hunker down and seriously deal with issues on the green carpet instead of engaging in military posturing and threatening more and more sanctions?
Obama's recent snub of China simply confirms that he and his allies in Seoul and Tokyo have long embarked on a forced march on the road of overthrowing North Korea. His is a gamble which could easily ratch up war fever and risk the outbreak of military confrontation.
GuamDiary hears no sane voices in the US government saying: 'whoa, hold your war horses!'
The more we read these cables on North Korea, the more GuamDiary is convinced that the US and South Korea have lost any resemblance to rational thinking for the moment.
As more and more leaked US diplomatic material comes to light, the American and international public learn that among US foreign service officers North Korea is called the 'Black Hole of Asia'. This assessment simply confirms what former senior CIA analyst, former US ambassador to South Korea, and former president of the New York based Korea Society,Donald Gregg has been openly saying for years:'North Korea is our biggest intelligence failure'. And the new released cables do not belie Gregg's judgment!
What set the chattering classes buzzing was the tidbit that a Chinese ambassador to a Central Asian republic voiced the opinion that China would look benignly on a unified Korea under the leadership of South Korea. GuamDiary found in the cables opinions that contradicted that assertion. But it was a lean bit of meat for the piranha media to fight over.
GuamDiary does know that diplomats are instructed to write cables so that the infomation conveyed is selective and shaped to serve and bolster US policy. Consequently, the ambassador's thoughts gave Washington hope that it could lean more and more on Beijing to control North Korea. Wrong!
This tantalising bauble now may have the effect of putting China out of its gords, the more especially that there is every geopolitical and historical reason that it runs contrary to the facts.
Helene Cooper, writing in the 'NYT' on Sunday 28 November 2010, noted that the Bush and Obama administrations have been pushing China to do its 'dirty work' in dealing with North Korea. And China has resisted. Today [30 November 2010], Obama rebuffed China's call for emergency talks on quieting war tensions in divided Korea. [See GuamDiary's 'Washington Seoul Tokyo axis trying to stymie China's NK initiative' and 'Wikileaks lifts the veil on US North Korea policy'.]
Closer scrutiny of the facts shows, as GuamDiary observed, that positions are more and more taut, and the situation on the ground look as though the US and South Korea had turned the clock back more than 60 years to the eve of the outbreak of the Korean War.
Simply put: China does not want a hostile presence on its borders. It does not look kindly nor with a gentle wink at a united Korea dominated by Seoul. South Korea's president Lee Myung bek's policy towards North Korea as well as Obama's, militates strongly against such an eventuality.
Although South Korea is an important trading partner with China, trade does not trump political and military reality. Seoul's and Beijing's purposes are at loggerheads.
From the leaked cables we do learn that the Chinese delegate to the six party talks Wu Dawei was his 'country's most incompetent official'; an arrogant Marx spouting former Red Guard 'who knows nothing about North Korea'.
Did not the American foreign service officer ever consider that Beijing was sending Washington a clear signal that it did not consider the US' approach to North Korea's nuclear programme short of incompetency and know nothingness? Beijing may very well have been telegraphing Obama to hunker down and seriously deal with issues on the green carpet instead of engaging in military posturing and threatening more and more sanctions?
Obama's recent snub of China simply confirms that he and his allies in Seoul and Tokyo have long embarked on a forced march on the road of overthrowing North Korea. His is a gamble which could easily ratch up war fever and risk the outbreak of military confrontation.
GuamDiary hears no sane voices in the US government saying: 'whoa, hold your war horses!'
The more we read these cables on North Korea, the more GuamDiary is convinced that the US and South Korea have lost any resemblance to rational thinking for the moment.
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