[Column] N.K. missiles and a Sino-Japanese Cold War

Lee Jong-won, Rikkyo University Professor of International Studies

Tension is growing between China and Japan over North Korea’s missile firings. The draft resolution Japan has submitted to the UN Security Council targets North Korea, but in truth it seeks to pressure China. Having been put on the defensive because of trips to worship at the Yasukuni Shrine, and that having led to Japan’s failure to become a permanent member of the Security Council, Japan is on the diplomatic counterattack against China. Working in connection with Washington’s UN Ambassador John Bolton--an important American neoconservative--it moved swiftly to rally for its tough proposal. Those in Japan calling for prudence have been pushed aside and the prime minister’s office, particularly chief cabinet secretary Shinzo Abe, is reportedly behind this push.

Once a resolution based on Article VII of the UN Charter passes, it becomes possible for Japan or any other member state to engage in economic sanctions and ultimately military action against North Korea. It is more than a little possible there could be specific action taken against North Korean ships, in the form of searches or a sea blockade.

At first, the United States appeared to be giving Japan its full support, but it seems to have changed its attitude. It postponed the vote on the resolution, having accepted the demands of China, which opposes sanctions and has set out to persuade Pyongyang itself. Japan wanted to go for a vote and not give China the time for that, but it got "persuaded" by the U.S. They say White House assistant Stephen Hadley and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice personally telephoned Abe and foreign minister Taro Aso. Rice’s State Department prefers strategic cooperation with China, whereas vice president Dick Cheney, UN ambassador John Bolton, and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld are more in line with Japan’s neoconservatives. The situation is also linked to the confrontations over policy within the U.S. It is an intense power game that will determine the direction taken by the Northeast Asian order.

All eyes are on the consultations between China and North Korea going on right now in Pyongyang. The situation will largely be determined by what message U.S. assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill delivers to the Chinese and whether North Korea agrees to resuming either official or "unofficial" six-party talks. The American position is that if North Korea comes back to the six-party talks, then Washington is willing to discuss all the issues, and that there can also be bilateral discussions with North Korea in that context. The question is whether or not the current financial sanctions includes "all the issues." As seen in its firing of missiles, North Korea perceives action against its finances as something that could directly threaten the existence of its government. It therefore appears to have adopted a policy of all-out confrontation, in which the removal of financial sanctions is something on which it cannot compromise.

Chinese diplomacy will be dealt a major blow if it fails to be persuasive with the North Koreans, since it was at its request that the Security Council vote has been postponed. It would be that much harder for it to vote against the resolution, but even abstention or nonattendance would be a display of the failure of Korean peninsular policy on the part of Hu Jintao’s government and overall incompetence on the part of Chinese diplomacy. China would be faced with a drop in its influence in Northeast Asia. It does remain possible that China could veto the resolution. It once threatened Taiwan with a missile launch, so formally recognizing that firing missiles is a threat to peace and something that makes one subject to sanctions could eventually backfire. The strengthening of the U.S.-Japan alliance over recent years is supposed to target Chinese military expansion and lack of transparency.

The confrontation over North Korea is speeding up a new cold war between China and Japan. Hard-liners in North Korea might think that such regional confrontation is, over the short term, going to be advantageous for its strategy for survival, but creating a new cold war in Northeast Asia is not going to benefit the whole of the peninsula. North Korea needs to return to finding diplomatic compromise.