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Tuesday, June 01, 2010

North Korea and China

China’s stance on North Korea could lead to war | The Times
Bill Emmott
Last updated May 31 2010 12:01AM

The world is anxious about the Kim regime but greater disasters loom unless its superpower neighbour acts

Try this quiz. You lead a rising economic superpower, with ambitions for global political power. You have pledged to pursue a “peaceful rise” and to work through the United Nations wherever possible to maintain international stability. Out of the blue, your unruly neighbour, an ally and quasi-dependant for the past 60 years, torpedoes a warship of its own neighbour, killing 46 sailors, and then, when accused of this crime, threatens all-out war. What do you do?

Virtually nothing, is China’s answer so far, for that is the superpower and the neighbour is North Korea. Officially, Chinese leaders are still “reviewing the evidence” presented by an international team that was asked by South Korea to investigate the sinking in March of the Cheonan, evidence that has convinced virtually everyone else that a North Korean torpedo was to blame.

A faraway country of which we know little, is what many are tempted to say of Kim Jong Il’s northeast Asian enclave, paraphrasing Neville Chamberlain’s notorious line about Czechoslovakia in 1938. The North Koreans have a long history of outrageous behaviour, from killing most of the South Korean Cabinet on a visit to Rangoon in 1983, to living off counterfeiting and cigarette-smuggling, to firing missiles over Japan, to testing nuclear weapons twice in the past four years. Recently, in negotiations they have mostly proved to have been after something, and have scuttled back into their “Hermit Kingdom” when they got it.

That is why much of the attention given to the Cheonan sinking and the threats of war since March has been devoted to working out what the North Koreans might be up to. Are they after something again, is a succession battle under way, or was the sinking just a mistake? Beyond a few flutters in the stock markets, especially in Asia, much of the world has carried on worrying more about the euro and BP’s oil spill than a new Korean war, despite 2010 being the 60th anniversary of the start of the old one.

It is time to worry rather more, by focusing instead on China and its policy towards North Korea. For what China’s reaction should tell us is that China’s interests in the Korean Peninsula are different from those of the West, of South Korea or of Japan. And in that divergence of interest lies danger: it makes North Korea the likeliest flashpoint for a potential conflict between China and America.

On other issues, the Chinese leadership is widely lauded for its fast and effective decision making — on bulldozing old city centres, for example, or building motorways and power stations, or giving aid to African governments in return for mining rights. Far better than those fusty old democracies, mutter the admirers. So why, we should all be asking, are they so slow to make up their minds about North Korea and its acts and threats of war?

The official line is that China is concerned about stability in North Korea and fears a huge influx of refugees across its long border with that country if Mr Kim’s regime should collapse. A further line, peddled more quietly by Chinese officials, is that China doesn’t really have much influence over those strange, unpredictable Koreans. So all it can do is take part in the six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, an on-off exercise that gathers together America, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas, urge everyone to show restraint, and hope for the best.

This line, always pretty thin, is looking ever thinner. The idea that Chinese security forces would not be capable of crowd control in the border region beggars belief. Dealing with refugees might be awkward, and even costly, but as a reason for tolerating military adventurism it is simply not credible. Nor is the notion of Chinese impotence: most of North Korea’s trade is with China, most of its oil supply comes from there, and virtually the only foreign companies in North Korea are Chinese. It would be pretty easy for China to “keep its boot on Kim’s neck”, as Americans like to say these days.

So why doesn’t it? The answer, surely, must be that China prefers to keep North Korea the way it is. Strategically, it provides a buffer against Japan and averts the prospect of a troublesome and eventually powerful unified Korea in the future. This has been the case ever since Mao Zedong sent in Chinese troops to rescue the North during the Korean War of 1950-53. This preference would not matter much as long as the North Korean regime looked basically stable and was a danger principally to its own people. But this is no longer the case.

Imagine what could happen when Kim Jong Il dies — which, being 68 and unhealthy, he might suddenly do. Suppose there is a struggle over the succession, one that could turn bloody, given that North Korea is said to be the world’s most militarised society. America, well aware that North Korea has about half a dozen nuclear warheads, will feel an urgent need to send troops in to seize nuclear materials. South Korea will, like Helmut Kohl in 1989, feel an urgent, historic need to ignore the huge costs and push for unification: the North is family, after all.

And China? My guess is that it would send its troops to the border, and probably across it, “in the interests of stability”, but actually to keep North Korea independent and under Chinese tutelage. The stage would thus be set for the first 21st-century confrontation between two superpowers.

This is one of the biggest risks facing the world. To reduce it, China needs to be engaged in open dialogue about North Korea, its behaviour and, above all, its future. It may not be seemly to discuss what to do when a regime collapses, especially one of an ally, but that is increasingly necessary in the case of the Kim dynasty.

Communication between the Chinese and American militaries remains patchy, with efforts to set up hotlines and the like slow to come to fruition. The chances of a misunderstanding in a moment of tension are high. Communication between the political leaderships is better, if still very stilted. The Cheonan sinking could be the last chance to force China to face up to the fact that its North Korean dependant is not just embarrassing but dangerous, to force it to discuss the future of the Korean Peninsula, to force it to join the 21st century rather than staying stuck in the 1950s. Unless that happens, next time it could really be war.




Noam Chomsky accuses Israel of 'apartheid era paranoia'

Noam Chomsky accuses Israel of ‘apartheid era paranoia’ | The Times
A leading left-wing political thinker who was denied entry to the West Bank by Israeli border guards has accused the Jewish state of acting in a “paranoid” fashion reminiscent of South Africa during the apartheid era.

Noam Chomsky, the Jewish American professor famed for his ground-breaking work on linguistics as well as his critical studies on the media and politics around the world, was trying to cross the Israeli-controlled border from Jordan to the West Bank on Sunday when he was detained for prolonged questioning and then told that he could not enter.

Mr Chomsky, 81, an outspoken critic of Israeli and US policy, had been invited to deliver lectures at Birzeit University in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. He was also due to visit a site where regular Palestinian demonstrations are held against the construction of a controversial Israeli security barrier that cuts through the West Bank, and had been scheduled to meet Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister.

“They apparently didn’t like the fact that I was due to lecture at a Palestinian university and not in Israel,” Mr Chomsky said afterwards from Jordan.

Israeli immigration officials called the refusal a “misunderstanding” between various branches of military and civilian bureaucracy at the border crossing. Mr Chomsky, however, said that in the course of his three-hour questioning his interrogator had been in frequent telephone contact with the Interior Ministry.

“They told me they didn’t like the kind of things I said about Israel,” he told The Times yesterday. “Israel is articulating its insistence that it controls who Birzeit is allowed to invite.”

His daughter, travelling with him, was also denied entry. “I really don’t know of any other examples outside of totalitarian states where people are denied entry because they are going to talk at a university. It may in part be just a reflection of the change in climate in Israel; the country has visibly got much more paranoid, circling the wagons and so on,” he said. “In fact, it is rather reminiscent of South Africa in the early 1960s, when it began to be recognised that they were becoming a pariah state and reacted pretty much in the way that Israel is reacting now.”

Mustafa Barghouti, the Palestinian opposition leader who had invited the American professor to talk in Ramallah, called the decision “a fascist action, amounting to suppression of freedom of expression”.

There was widespread condemnation of the move in Israel. “I would not prevent the man from entering, unless I had information that his statements would pose a danger. Every person has a right; it is his right to enter and his right to leave Israel,” said Yaakov Turkel, a former Supreme Court judge.

Commentary in the mass circulation Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth went farther: “It would not be an exaggeration to say that the decision to shut up Professor Chomsky is an attempt to put an end to freedom in the state of Israel,” a writer thundered. “I am not talking about the stupidity of supplying ammunition to those who say that Israel is fascist, but rather about our concern that we may be becoming fascists.”

Some, however, defended the decision to bar Mr Chomsky. “It’s good that Israel did not allow one of its accusers to enter its territory. I recommend [Chomsky] try one of the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt,” said Otniel Schneller, an MP of the opposition Kadima party.

Israel has recently tightened the regulations for entry via the Jordanian border, with some aid groups saying that their workers have often been refused entry to the West Bank.

Readers’ favourite

· Noam Chomsky was born in 1928 in Philadelphia to Jewish parents from Eastern Europe. He claimed to have written his first political essay at the age of 10

· Came to prominence in 1967 with an essay arguing that academics had a duty to oppose the Vietnam War

· Has derided Israel as “essentially a US military base”. Visited Lebanon after the 2006 Israeli offensive to meet Hezbollah leaders

· In 2005 he was voted the world’s top public intellectual by Prospect magazine readers, seeing off the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Umberto Eco




neo-Ottomanism

Commando raid may be final nail in the coffin of ties between Israel and Turkey | The Times
Analysis James Hider Ashdod
Last updated May 31 2010 12:53PM

The bloody Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship bringing aid and pro-Palestinian activists to Gaza has not only left an estimated 19 people dead, but appeared to have driven the final nail into the coffin of the already strained ties between Israel and Turkey.

Israel and Turkey rank as two of the most important strategic allies the United States has in the region, and had long enjoyed a close relationship, especially on the military level.

But since the Gaza war 18 months ago, Turkey has increasingly turned its back on Israel, preferring to develop its influence in the Muslim countries that once were part of the Ottoman Empire.

The first sign that the relationship was under pressure came after the Gaza offensive in early 2009, when the moderate Islamic Turkish Prime Minister, Tayeb Recep Erdogan, walked out of an international conference rather than share a forum with Shimon Peres, the Israeli President.

A series of anti-Israeli Turkish television dramas, showing Israeli troops slaughtering Palestinian civilians, earned rebukes from Israel. But those rebukes backfired on Israel when the Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, summoned the Turkish ambassador to his office and then publicly humiliated him by pointing out, in Hebrew, to camera crews filming the event that he had deliberately seated the Turkish envoy on a low seat and not put a Turkish flag next to Israelis.

Turkey later refused to host large-scale joint military exercise with the United States if Israel participated, prompting Washington to cancel the manoeuvres.

There had a been a slight thaw in relations until today, when Israeli Navy Seals stormed a Turkish ship — part of an aid flotilla to Gaza — and killed a large number of Turks. Israel said that its commandoes were met with men armed with metal clubs and knives who even managed to wrest two pistols off the elite Israeli forces, triggering a bloodbath in the close quarters of the ships’ decks.

Immediately, an angry crowd in Istanbul attacked the Israeli consulate in Istanbul and caused some damage before police pushed them back. As countries across Europe summoned Israeli ambassadors to explain the overnight shootings, Turkey pulled its envoy out of Israel. The Jewish state issued travel warnings to its citizens not to travel to Turkey — traditionally a safe and popular holiday destination for Israelis in an otherwise hostile region.

Anti-Israeli crowds in Istanbul quickly swelled to around ten thousand, chanting “Damn Israel” after Ankara called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the raid. The Turkish Foreign Ministry warned that bilateral ties with Israel could suffer “irreparable consequences” after the shooting, which is deemed “unacceptable”.

Israeli analysts believe that the deterioration of ties with Turkey was beyond its control, however: they believe that Turkey, having been kept waiting too long by the European union for membership, is turning its interest and influence eastwards in what they call “neo-Ottomanism”, a policy that could reshape the power structure in the region and make Ankara — traditionally a bridge between east and west — a new force in the Middle East.

Israel’s international reputation has been in the doldrums since the Gaza war, especially since a UN inquiry accused both the Jewish state and the Palestinian group Hamas of war crimes. It has even fallen out recently with its main ally Washington over its reluctance to stop all Jewish settlement growth on war-conquered lands that would allow peace talks to resume.

After a chilly meeting this year with President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was due to hold friendlier talks tomorrow in the White House. But Mr Netanyahu was said to be considering cancelling the meeting and returning home after the shooting on the Mediterranean.




US hegemony in Middle East is ending

| Chris Phillips | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
A recent arms deal between Russia and Syria has raised the prospect of a new cold war in the Middle East. Foreign Policy's Josh Landis, for example, suggests that unconditional US support for Israel will draw Moscow back into its pre-1989 role as supporter and arms supplier for the enemies of Tel Aviv and Washington.

Yet Russia's return to Syria, whether it be the sale of MiG-29s or building a naval dock on the Syrian coast, is not the action of a superpower challenging US hegemony as it was in 1945-89 but rather an assertive regional power taking advantage of the emerging power vacuum in the region. Instead of a new bi-polar cold war, regional powers such as Russia and Turkey are increasing their influence at the United States' expense.

The idea of a new cold war has gained currency in some quarters for the wrong reasons. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad himself told La Repubblica last week that "Russia is reasserting itself. And the cold war is just a natural reaction to the attempt by America to dominate the world".

In the same interview he asserted that there was a new triple alliance between Syria, Turkey and Iran – part of a "northern alliance" that Damascus has been trying to construct against Israel and the US – with Russia now cast in the role as superpower benefactor.

As leader of a small power attempting to defy the global hegemon, it is in Assad's interests to exaggerate the strength of such an alliance. Yet no such cohesive united bloc actually exists. Russia is pursuing a realist regional agenda, ensuring it can maximise its influence without unnecessarily confronting the US – a cornerstone of Dmitry Medvedev's foreign policy. A recent spat with Tehran over Russian support for Washington's new UN sanctions on Iran hardly suggests a united anti-American/anti-Israeli front.

Turkey, too, is not tying itself to any camp. Damascus may regard Ankara's rekindled relationship with Iraq, Iran and Syria as crucial for any new alignment, but Turkey's "zero problems with neighbours" policy is not limited to those states on its southern border. Turkey is seeking influence and markets for its rapidly expanding economy across the region, including Israel.

Though prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rhetoric has been increasingly populist and anti-Israeli since the Gaza war of 2008-2009, the deep commercial, economic and military ties between the Turkish and Israeli establishments show no signs of receding. Like Russia, Turkey is pursuing its own interests by asserting its influence in the whole Middle East, not just as the lynchpin of an anti-America/Israel bloc.

Yet even though the return to cold war bi-polar blocs in the Middle East is unlikely, the region's international relations are changing. US power is waning. Though Washington remains the world's only superpower, the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed the limits of US ambitions, while the economic crisis has forced the Obama administration to focus energy elsewhere.

While the Bush era saw the US hegemonic in the region, squeezing the defiant few like Syria and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, today's Middle East sees a power vacuum led by partial US retreat being filled by assertive regional and middle powers. Turkey and Brazil's recent nuclear deal with Iran typify this emerging new climate.

Stephen Walt has highlighted that this shift in power is global, with Asia's share of GDP already outstripping that of the US or Europe. As ever, it seems the Middle East could prove a microcosm of these international changes. If the age of American uni-polarity is coming to an end, perhaps hastened by unnecessary wars and economic shortsightedness, it is much more likely that international relations in the Middle East will come to reflect the multi-polar world that will follow rather than revert to a bi-polar cold war.

In such circumstances, it won't just be Russia and Turkey expanding their reach in the region, but China, India and Brazil will all bid for a role, too – presumably having fewer demands than Washington about their clients pursuing democratic reforms and peace with Israel. Saudi Arabia's growing relationship with China might signify the shape of things to come.

Not that this era is yet upon us. The US remains the superpower and could still effect serious change in the region, should it desire. However, the recent actions of Russia and Turkey in the Middle East do show a new assertiveness from regional powers to pursue their own path in defiance of US will, whether through arms deals, trade agreements or diplomatic coups. A new cold war is unlikely, but the age of unchallenged US hegemony in the Middle East could be ending.


flotilla

Netanyahu cancels Obama meeting amid raid furore | The Times
Israel’s prime minister has cancelled a planned meeting with President Obama to deal with the escalating international crisis over an attack by the Israeli military on civilian aid ships that left at least 10 dead.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, is in Canada and had been due to visit the White House tomorrow after a series of increasingly fractious meetings with the US over the stalled Middle East peace process.

But after Israeli naval commandos stormed the ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla overnight, killing up to 19 according to some reports and leaving dozens wounded, Mr Netanyahu has found his country the target of international condemnation and protest.

He said he gave the Israeli military his “full backing” but after initially saying his trip would continue, his office said it had been cancelled.

The Israeli army admitted to 10 deaths in the operation, with reports suggesting nine victims of the violence – which mainly took place on a Turkish vessel – were from Turkey. The reports prompted a furious reaction in Istanbul, where tens of thousands of protesters attempted to storm the Israeli consulate, chanting slogans calling for revenge. Turkey, whose relations with Israel were already tense, immediately withdrew its ambassador and cancelled joint military exercises. At least 28 Britons were aboard ships in the flotilla but it is not known if any of them were involved in the violence.

An Israeli government spokesman said its troops were attacked last night with knives and metal pipes as they attempted to board one of the ships from a helicopter. He said that shooting started when one of the civilians made a grab for a soldier’s gun.

A total of ten soldiers were wounded, including at least one hit by live fire, the army said. Two of the dead activists had fired pistols snatched from soldiers, the army said.

As the Israeli Defence Force towed the six ships into the Israel port of Ashdod, some of the wounded were ferried to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

Countries around the world condemned the raid, with the UN human rights chief Navi Pillay saying she was “shocked” at the violence and the UN Middle East envoy saying that “such tragedies are entirely avoidable”. The UN security council is to meet this afternoon over the crisis. Hamas, the Islamist group which rules the Gaza Strip, called on Muslims around the world to “rise up” in protest.

The White House has expressed “deep concern” and said it is working to understand the circumstances of the deaths.