The good news is that, among Northeast Asian capital cities, I'm in the safest one by far. The better news is that I might have front-row seats to World War III.
China is in a pissed-off mood after North Korea's nuclear test last week. Here is why: Japan might just decide to go nuclear. Brand new, more nationalistic Prime Minister Abe may be looking to solidify his base with a bold, anti-traditional move.
There is a very real, very scary threat in the neighborhood, and Japan's anti-nuclear lobby will be particularly weak. If there ever has been a time for the Japanese to emerge from under the American nuclear umbrella, it is now.
This kind of conflict and competition is exactly what China does not want. More than anything else, Beijing is hoping for stability and continued growth. They want their economy to continue its current explosion, and they want unfettered trade access to the rest of the world. The last thing they want is to have two nuclear rivals in the neighborhood and be caught up in a nasty arms race that will kill investment and pull resources away from their burgeoning manufacturing business.
But what of the Americans? Nobody is saying it aloud, but this nuclear test is a boon for the United States' North Korea policy. True, the idea of North Korea selling nukes to kooks (read: rogue states and terrorists) is a scary one, but that is not a new threat. At least the ball is rolling on something we have long been pushing for.
Also true, we have our hands full in the Middle East, but putting the lid on North Korea will not require much direct action by the United States. Besides, a military option is completely out of the question and has been for years.
We've long suspected that North Korean President Kim Jong-Il has been sitting on about half a dozen nukes, and recent events only confirm this. In addition to their atomic resources, North Korea has enough artillery lined up along the 39th parallel to flatten Seoul in half an hour. With nearly 10 million South Korean hostages, plus the threat of the Bomb, nobody has seriously considered an invasion of North Korea in a long time. This is especially so, given the fact that Kim is totally bananas and would probably prefer to go down in a (nuclear) blaze of glory than as a captive of the Americans.
So what is going to happen? And what should happen? Here is an appetizer to preface my answer: An hour before the North Koreans blew their nuke, U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told President Bush what was about to happen. Clairvoyance? Nothing so fancy. In fact, the North Koreans had called Beijing to give them a heads up about the detonation. When Chinese President Hu found out, his first action was to send an emergency alert to Washington.
North Korea is an issue on which the Americans and the Chinese ultimately have similar objectives. As a result, this is a unique chance for the two states to work together and build a better, stronger, more trusting foundation to the relationship. Already, the two states have been cooperating at the U.N.: An often icy relationship yielded to cooperative negotiation, resulting in the
toughest international sanctions placed on North Korea since the end of the Korean War.
The new measures will be in effect soon, and as weeks pass, China will likely continue to tighten the screws. North Korea is virtually helpless without continued Chinese oil and food aid, and if they choose to, the Chinese can force the issue. Beijing will not push Pyongyang to the point of collapse out of fears of a massive wave of starving North Koreans flooding over the border into China. However, this issue is important enough to China that they will take relatively extreme measures to force Kim to denuclearize.
This is where the United States comes in. The primary concession North Korea has always demanded is an explicit, unambiguous security guarantee from the United States. The historic reason Kim and his father have pursued the Bomb is as a protective measure against American invasion. China must make it politically costly for North Korea to keep the Bomb, but Washington must make it safe for them to give it up. We have no choice.
We cannot resolve this crisis peacefully unless the Bush team puts its "axis of evil" policy in the past and makes a clear offer of security. For some, this is an unsavory option, as it leaves Kim in power to abuse his own people and cause more trouble in the future. Regime change, however, is not an option; there is just no way to go about it without inviting millions of civilian deaths. And besides, as we have discovered elsewhere, we are frankly not much good at state building.
According to yesterday's New York Times, there are as many as 40 states with the ability to build a nuclear weapon. A world in which everybody and their cousin has a Bomb pointed at someone else is an unsafe world, indeed. The United States and China must act to take the Bomb away from North Korea, or we will soon be living on a much less comfortable planet.
Sam DuPont is a junior majoring in international relations. He is currently studying abroad in Beijing, China. He can be reached at Samuel.DuPont@tufts.edu.
