Page 2 of 2 The Cheonan sinking ... and Korea rising
By Peter Lee
Beyond the desire to protect the unionized employees of American auto
manufacturers from Korean competition - and the well-founded suspicion that a
free trade agreement would simply exacerbate the US-Asia trade headache (South
Korea currently enjoys a $45 billion annual trade surplus with the US, bigger
than Japan's) - the Obama administration apparently still believes that its
North Asian interests and global interests are not necessarily served by trying
to repurpose South Korea as an anti-Chinese bastion.
That role is traditionally played by Japan, which is locked in a zero-sum
economic battle with China and highly suspicious of Chinese military motives.
The US forward military presence in Japan pre-empts Japanese rearmament,
reduces the incentives
for a regional arms race, and is welcomed by many regional actors including,
perhaps, China itself.
The DPJ government is now in full retreat from its original non-aligned
strategy. It aroused Chinese ire by tweaking Beijing on the issue of its
nuclear arsenal, then leaked the news of Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi's rage to
the international press to gain desperately needed political and diplomatic
capital. [3]
Instead of moving the US Marine air base off Okinawa, Hatoyama clumsily and
without reference to his cabinet reaffirmed the pro-US deal negotiated by the
previous Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government that keeps it on the island,
to the dismay of Hatoyama's coalition partners and the disgust of the Japanese
electorate.
It appears inevitable that the successor to the Hatoyama government will remain
committed to the US alliance.
The Obama administration may be somewhat beguiled by the vision of Korea
rising, but it remains committed to the Japanese alliance and is doubtless wary
of Seoul's growing desire to assert itself militarily - a recapitulation of
threats by previous LDP governments in Japan to unleash the Self-Defense
Forces.
It is also aware that, for the time being, China is still the economic and
military powerhouse in the neighborhood, and has hedged its bets accordingly.
Therefore, US diplomats have supported South Korea's call for punishment
unequivocally.
However, at the same time, Washington has resisted calls to push China into a
corner by demanding it endorse the Cheonan findings or else risk
international ostracism.
For its part, China has unsuccessfully attempted to to defuse the crisis and
handle it as a regional issue within the context of the six-party talks in
which its role is pre-eminent, and promote business as usual.
However, Lee does not appear interested in handing the regional initiative to
Beijing, and the six-party talks appear to be the primary diplomatic victim of
the Cheonan sinking.
The incident reportedly derailed a bilateral meeting between North
Korean and American negotiators in Washington that would have led to the
resumption of the Six Party talks on denuclearization - talks which the current
South Korean government ostensibly welcome but have done little to advance.[4]
Instead, South Korea has seized center stage as the injured party, replacing
North Korea as the government whose priorities and sensibilities have to be
acknowledged by the international community.
Concurrently, South Korea's claims to importance as a world power - and key US
ally - are enhanced by Lee's so-far successful insistence that the Cheonan
incident be elevated to the UN Security Council, a US-friendly venue where
China routinely backs down on matters of importance to the West to avoid
diplomatic isolation.
Under ordinary circumstances, China would be expected to keep its head down and
wait for the economic logic of its relationship with South Korea to reassert
itself.
The wild card that could upset the regional calculus is how the Korean
peninsula will look if and when North Korea gives up the ghost - an
increasingly likely scenario.
Given the growing wealth of its neighbors and the level of international
commitment to rescuing the people of North Korea from the economic
mismanagement of their leaders, the "massive costs" and "flood of refugees"
obstacles to reunification appear less and less daunting.
Lee's "Vision 3000" reunification policy - an assisted suicide program for the
North Korean regime predicated upon it opening up its economy to foreign aid
and investment while delaying integration until North Korean per capita incomes
had roughly tripled to US$3,000 - has started to generate some investment bank
heat.
South Korea's latest Vision 3000 video-conference pitch was hosted by Goldman
Sachs.[5]
A high tech trends website, h+, breathlessly spun the latest reunification
scenario: it will pay for itself! With "change left over!" Just like Iraq!
More arithmetic for you: The Rand Corporation estimates the cost of
Korean reunification at $50 billion, Credit Suisse insists $1.5 trillion is the
expense, and Stanford fellow Peter M. Beck posits an alarmist $2-$5 trillion.
Question: Who's got that kind of cash? Answer: North Korean mines. 360 minerals
are sequestered in the Hermit Kingdom's caves, many trapped by flooding and
NK's [North Korea's] appalling infrastructure. Billions of tons of coal, iron,
zinc, magnesite, nickel, uranium, tungsten, phosphate, graphite, gold, silver,
mercury, sulfur, limestone, copper, manganese, molybdenum... worth an estimated
$2-$6 trillion (Goldman Sach's figure is $2.5 trillion). Reunification could be
entirely paid for by these mines, perhaps with change left over.[6]
It appears that Lee would prefer to treat northern Korea as the low-wage,
resource-rich hinterland that powers the West-oriented-export economy of a
united and pro-US Korea - rather than China's Shandong. China would also prefer
an independent or at least autonomous successor regime with an
Asian-authoritative tinge to arise in Pyongyang under Beijing's tutelage, one
that would not look to Seoul for advantage - or enhance South Korea's military
heft and diplomatic pretensions in the region.
South Korea's well-advertised reunification-related hesitations may have less
to do with the genuine financial and social burden of taking immediate
responsibility for 23 million citizens of a failing state. It may be down to
the vulnerability of the current political system system, particularly its
ruling party, to a "flood of voters" - voters supposedly indoctrinated with a
hatred of Lee - that immediate reunification would bring.
What matters to South Korea today is, by this analysis, making it possible for
post-Kim Jong-il's North Korea to pass into some form of pro-Western
international receivership that guides its steps toward liberal democracy and
eventual integration into the South Korean economic and political system on the
most advantageous terms to Seoul.
Reportedly, China is concerned that reunification managed by Seoul and the West
will send North Korea, its large population, its rich resources, its loyalties
- and its soldiers - into the arms of the South.
In the unlikely event that the North Korean army was absorbed en masse into
South Korea's armed forces, a reunited Korea would have 10 million soldiers
under arms - more than China.
This would not appear to be a future that China is prepared to promote, let
alone subsidize by underwriting Lee's Vision 3000 program.
However, if Lee succeeds in pushing the Cheonan incident up to the UN
Security Council, there exists the potential to put North Korea's entire future
in play on US and South Korean terms.
As prospects for prolonging the status quo under Chinese auspices dwindle in
the wake of the Cheonan sinking, the United States may find the prospect
of Korea rising - a unified, vigorous, and economically vibrant regime
replacing Japan as China's primary pro-US antagonist in the region -
increasingly attractive.
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