Opinion - News Analysis

Power games in East Asia

P.S. Suryanarayana

The North Korean crisis has led to a shifting of equations in the region.

THE UNITED Nations resolution against North Korea, unanimously adopted by the Security Council in New York on July 15, is strong on diplomatic language but weak in political impact. And thereby hangs an East Asian tale of new big-power equations.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), better known as North Korea, test-fired a stream of seven missiles in the early hours of July 5. The routine military exercise, as North Korea later described the event, coincided with the Independence Day celebrations in the United States.

Not a surprise, as the complex and often hostile relations between Washington and Pyongyang can be traced to the Korean War of the early 1950s. And, for over a decade now, the U.S., active as the high priest of non-proliferation, has insisted that the DPRK cannot arm itself with the atom bomb as also missiles and other means of delivering any category of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The U.S. and Japan, detecting and monitoring North Korea's July 5 missile experiment, said the effort was unsuccessful, particularly the flight-test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Known as Taepodong-2, this missile was thought to have been designed to hit U.S. targets and threaten Japan as well. North Korea claimed on July 6 that the new missile exercises had strengthened its deterrence against the U.S.

Now, spurred by Pyongyang's testing of the intermediate-range Taepodong-1 in 1998, pacifist Japan has been seeking to re-emerge as a "normal" military power. And, the U.S. is Tokyo's patron and partner in this endeavour.

It is against this background that North Korea has rejected the new U.N. Resolution 1695. As the diluted version of a stronger draft, this resolution was not adopted under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter that provides for mandatory action by the member-states.

China threatened to veto and Russia disapproved of the initial proposal by Japan and the U.S. Tokyo and Washington wanted the Council to impose economic sanctions and also authorise military action against North Korea if it were to conduct further missile tests.

At first glance, this divide among the major powers in the U.N. Security Council, where Japan is currently a non-permanent member, may seem to reflect a replay of the politics of the Cold War era. And, Pyongyang's rhetoric is reminiscent of the Cold War logic. However, today's reality in East Asia is different. A view shared by even hardline China sceptics, such as Gordon Chang, is that the U.S. just survived the Cold War without winning it. So, Washington cannot do without Beijing's cooperation on a key strategic issue such as North Korea's missile and WMD programmes.

Resolution 1695 will be better understood against the backdrop of China's vestigial "influence" over North Korea, at one level, and Japan's push for a new global political order, at another.

The resolution outlines: (1) the "demand" that the DPRK "suspend" its missile programme; (2) the parallel "demand" that Pyongyang "re-establish" its one-time moratorium on missile tests; (3) the "requirement" that all U.N. member-states "prevent" the transfer of materials and know-how as also "the transfer of any financial resources" to North Korea for its missile-and-WMD agenda; and (4) the parallel "requirement" that the international community "prevent the procurement ... from the DPRK" of missile-related materials and know-how besides any finished products in this domain.

Under international law, the operative language of the resolution does not amount to an imposition of economic sanctions, as different from proliferation-related sanctions, on North Korea. But the unanimity, which brought China and Japan together despite their growing regional rivalry, is reflected in the new snapshot of strategies, as it were, in today's East Asia.

Seen in the snapshot are several big and emerging players including India and Russia among others. Relevant to the latest North Korean missile crisis, though, are these crosscurrents.

The U.S. wants to postpone, as long as possible, the big fight with China, should that be seen at all as inevitable. Aware of this, China is willing to cooperate with the U.S. on major issues of international concern, such as non-proliferation, but the caveat is that Beijing will have an equal say on these matters. Japan, which needs the U.S. still as an ally, wants to prove to Washington that its "interdependence" in relation to China has limits. And, illustrative of these limits, as seen by Tokyo, is China's inability or unwillingness to "influence" North Korea to roll back its missile-WMD programmes.

In the event, as Japan and the U.S. climbed down from their initial position on the North Korean missile crisis, Tokyo has had China's vote rather than its veto to show as a prize. However, China has simply tried to preserve its current equation with the U.S. in good repair without toeing Washington's line.

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