Although I can’t actually read the piece owing to my lack of a WSJ subscription, Bruce Gilley apparently got people talking by calling for a Chinese invasion of North Korea on “humanitarian grounds.” Since I haven’t read the original, it’s hard to issue comment on it. I will say that while I’ve heard rumors of Chinese schemes to back coups in Pyongyang or outright annex North Korea, I’ve also read South Korea’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say that China has plans to back Pyongyang with 400,000 troops in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula (granted, these rumors are not mutually exclusive). Personally, I think the prospect of China making a major military move in North Korea is the stuff of fantasy and/or nightmares, although I’m always willing to consider that such possibilities exist, at least on paper.
Also an interesting read in response to the WSJ piece is Noah Millman’s post over at Gideon’s Blog. Just to give you the intro:
Ask China to invade North Korea and install a less-odious regime?
Here’s my immediate reaction to the very suggestion: it is more proof that China is winning the diplomatic game in Asia. As I’ve argued before, our problem with the situation in North Korea is that every possible action by the United States strengthens China. If we appease North Korea, that tells Japan and South Korea that either America no longer considers North Korea a threat (in which case why does South Korea in particular need the alliance with us?) or that we’re unwilling to confront the threat (in which case what good is the alliance to either country?). Either conclusion strengthens the argument that their most important relationship is not with the U.S. but with China. If we take an aggressive line against North Korea, we alarm South Korea, who is most likely to suffer if the situation ultimately deteriorates into a shooting war. South Korea would certainly turn against America if attacked by North Korea in response to an unprovoked American attack on the North; it would also logically tilt toward China out of self protection if America merely ramped up its hostility to the North. So either appeasement or confrontation helps China and hurts America’s position in Northeast Asia. And Southeast Asian allies are likely to draw similar conclusions.
Read the rest on your own, although I’m still much more inclined toward Thomas P.M. Barnett’s point of view on the question of cutting deals with Beijing.
22 Comments
I can see China doing it this way — if NK begins to implode in fairly rapid fashion, China could move in troops to “stablize” the country and for “humanitarian” assistance to stem the tide of refugees and other disrupters to Chinese territory that borders North Korea. I don’t even us the ” ” to give extra meaning
I think we’re talking about the wrong half of Korea for Chinese troops. What’s wrong with China “replacing” the US troops in ROK with some of theirs? ROK could fund the deployment with the money they’re currently paying out to support USFK installations — so, no drain on the Chinese budget.
I’m not talking about warfighting, maybe 10,000 Chinese with light arms as “observers” along the DMZ, so no need to build new installations for USFK — hey, that’s another budget savings (and another ROK political headache avoided). And of course they’ll be wearing the famed “blue helmets” of legend and lore. The “UN mandate” for USFK (you know, the 1950 one that occurred because of the Soviet boycott, & has never been formally rescinded due to US veto — but is essentially “inoperative” now, right?) can be revived and given new life. Think about all the smiles that will bring out in Turtle Bay! The “international community” is gonna be plenty excited about this one!
“Reunification” is the name of the game in ROK politics, right? One imagines the congenial discussions about this that will inevitably ensue, under benevolent Chinese auspices. I can see it now, while the high-level muck-a-mucks confer, there are campfires all along the DMZ, with ROK, DPRK, and PRC soldiers roasting marshmellows together and singing “Fucking USA” in chorus (they could put their heads together and come up with some new verses about Japan as well).
At the same time, former USFK soldiers are back at CONUS installations, also around campfires, singing “I’m so glad…(to be living in the USA)”.
Everybody’s happy! (except maybe Nulji, but he never likes anything anyway so he doesn’t count).
Tell me, o wise ones, where’s the downside? I just don’t see it no matter how hard I slap my “waygook” forehead. (Did I get that term right?)
i agree with everything in post #1 except for the last sentence. China’s plan is definately to move in, they have hundreds of thousands of People’s Armed Police stationed on the border since 2 years ago.
Would North Korea become the next Tibet? Or maybe just a Chinese puppet state (like Syria’s Lebanon)?
Or maybe the North Koreans would fight?
Most unlikely scenario: South Korea would fight for the North? China could just claim to be running an interim govt for a few years, constantly pledging to pull out, and I’d bet you a six pack of your favorite beer that the South would fall for it. Just look how gullible they are with North Korea! After a few years, South Korea would lose the moment of outrage and accept the status quo.
‘china would have to accept the deployment of other nation’s troops.’
yes, namely, south korea’s.
’south korea would accept the status quo in a few years…’
tells me you really don’t know the koreans; the yemaek will never accept chinese domination of any part of choson. hope the chinese understand this lest they get themselves their own private vietnam.
‘…so nulji doesn’t count.’
well, then, why even bother to mention me, paul? c’mon, old man, you’re not the only who’s old though only one of has sharp vision. and that one ain’t you, paul.
‘understand the human heart and you understand the human being.’ nulji maripkan
Just a joke Nulji, as I think your viewpoint really does count & hoped to get a comment from you here.
Blurred though my vision is, for me you have come to represent (on this board, in a small way) the voice of overall Korean nationalism. The one that spans both north and south, and also one that is often carried all the way out to its logical extreme (to include xenophobia).
Since I can’t read Korean & am unlikely to learn, I think it’s a good thing that any non-Korean speakers venturing on this board get to hear that voice — in the first person.
(sorry, i had to do this manually. my trackback system is messed up)
Reunification, China and North Korea
Regular readers may recall my lunch with Mr. C. way back this past summer when he made the prediction that North and South Korea would reunify within 5 years due to some sort of unexpected trauma or sudden collapse of the North regime.
I don??t know what it is (something in the air?) but talk has again resurfaced in regards to whatever the ?橫R?? word means for Korea. Being that a lot of you are regular readers of The Marmot, then you…
In reference to the reference to the last line of my post #1 above — the key phrase was “to get a green light.” I didn’t mean to imply that China would hold back if no such light were forth coming.
I would give a 30-70% chance that China would accept a deal where more than 1 other nation would send troops into NK to work kind of along side Chinese troops. There is a chance, but probably a small one
‘i would take a look at history as well…when koreans were shown to be cowards.’ usinkorea
yes, let’s look…korea almost two thousand years old. interesting, ain’t it? why china not take over for such a long time? answer: too costly and not needed since korea willing friend to china. japan? only successful for 50 years because of better arms just like yi sun shin had better ships. look at history? yes, let’s…
btw, the vietnamese were occupied by the french for over a hundred years before they put up a real fight.
how do you say dien bien phu in chinese?
lastly, paul h, believe it or not, i have respect for you even though your politics are the politics of yesterday. i look forward to your sharp and piffy comments whenever you feel the need to make them to me. peace.
To usinkorea:
Many Koreans fought the Japanese. The government caved, but after the surrender some in the Army headed to the hills, combined with some of the yangban and peasants and mounted a resistance. (Cumings “A force of nearly 10,000 penetrated to within eight miles of Seoul in 1907…guerillas under arms were 69,832 in 1908.”) The problems were, they didn’t have much in the way of modern weaponry, and the Japanese fought and punished them with the efficient savagery that the rest of Asia had to wait a few more years to see so that after a few years they were wiped out, gave up of moved to Manchuria.
When you say Koreans didn’t fight outsiders, you have a point when you refer to the government (yes, I know the government fought most of the time), but often it was so financially strapped and riddled with intrigue, incompetence and factionalism that it was unable to respond and the people had to take manners in their own hands, such as in both Japanese invasions or with the Mongolians.
To others:
I don’t know if the Chinese are planning to invade North Korea or not, but I think the Koguryo debate is largely an attempt by the Chinese to validate their claims there in the future if need be.
And in reference to the poll above about the Koreans not liking the people around them: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you. (Well, maybe that’s an exagerration.)
If you haven’t read it yet…
An Immodest Proposal
By BRUCE GILLEY
January 6, 2005; Page A16
A new Asia director at the National Security Council offers the chance for some fresh thinking on North Korea. Victor Cha, who assumed the post last month, is a scholar and policy analyst who will bring a hard-nosed approach to the issue. Mr. Cha has long advocated that Washington and Beijing work more closely to turn up the heat on Pyongyang. But such plans have so far always foundered on China’s reluctance to become more involved in trying to end North Korea’s nuclear programs.
So here is an immodest proposal that could reduce global tensions, bring justice to millions, and cement China’s emergence as a great power: Beijing should invade North Korea on humanitarian grounds and establish a China-backed transitional regime there. The U.S. and its allies in Asia should provide diplomatic and logistical support to the operation, while the U.N. should provide its legal blessing.
Seldom has there been a regime more deserving of being overthrown on humanitarian grounds. North Korea is one of the great disasters of our time. A famine from 1995 to 1998 killed between 600,000 and one million people — 4% of the population. Even today a third of the population is malnourished. Basic rights simply do not exist. All of this is because of a cruel and unreformed communist regime that makes Saddam’s Iraq look like a paragon of justice. As if these humanitarian considerations were not enough, North Korea’s nuclear programs pose a major threat to world peace and raise the specter of proliferation of WMD. So too do its biological and chemical-weapons programs, which have so far received far less international attention. In short, there is a firm basis for a just war to topple Kim Jong Il.
It is not a war that the U.S. and its Western allies can wage for several reasons, not least that their militaries are now fully committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor do Japan or South Korea have the will or the means to take on the task. Indeed, their foreign ministers agreed in mid-December to focus their efforts on China’s leverage with Pyongyang. That leaves China as the only country with the military capacity and national interest to do the job: It is Beijing’s sphere of influence that Pyongyang is destabilizing with its nuclear adventurism. Nor is it in Beijing’s interest to have a crumbling regime as its neighbor, as evidenced by the continual embarrassments over how to deal with a flood of starving refugees.
A People’s Liberation Army-led invasion could be a clean-cut affair. It would not require passing through other countries, or even using their territory as support centers. China’s experience with the ethnic Korean autonomous regions in Manchuria would give it an ample supply of administrators and institutions to rule Pyongyang for a transitional period, until the formation of a new government. That is, if Beijing was prepared to accept the task at all, given its historical ties to Pyongyang, and the fact that China has become one of the last great defenders of the absolute inviolability of state sovereignty. That is a principle which Beijing has its own interests in defending, not least because it serves as a useful foil for deflecting foreign complaints about its repression in Tibet. Yet Beijing has also begun acting in ways which show an implicit understanding that the era of absolute state sovereignty is over. It has supported U.N.-blessed military actions, and even sent a contingent of police to participate in peacekeeping in Haiti. A properly sanctioned military intervention in North Korea could readily be portrayed as consistent with international law, and China’s desire for a U.N.-centered world order.
There is also evidence that Chinese thinking is beginning to shift away from its old unquestioning support for North Korea. Chinese leaders are widely reported to be frustrated by Pyongyang’s intransigent attitude in the multilateral talks about its nuclear programs, and worried about Russian arms sales to Pyongyang. Last August, the military-backed magazine “Strategy and Management” even published an article by a Chinese scholar denouncing Pyongyang as a dangerous and ungrateful regime. Although that was a step farther than Beijing is prepared to go at present — prompting the magazine’s closure — it demonstrated that the disadvantages of continuing to back Pyongyang are beginning to be more widely recognized.
The worry is that China would use such an intervention to attain wider imperialist objectives in Asia, including possibly a takeover of Taiwan. However, any intervention would be seen by the rest of Asia as precisely a test of that proposition and Beijing would make sure it did not lose the opportunity to prove itself a responsible new great power in Asia.
Is this all so much pie in the sky? Asians tend to forget that they are partly responsible for the emergence of the notion of humanitarian intervention in the post-World War II era. In the case of India’s invasion of East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh) in 1971 and Vietnam’s of Cambodia in 1978, Asian countries intervened in neighbors that were suffering humanitarian disasters.
Unilateralism has been the norm, not the exception, in humanitarian interventions since at least the 19th century. Today, there is a strong argument that a unilateral, albeit widely supported, Chinese action against the regime in North Korea would be good for the world. Accepting this solution would require that all the major parties — China, Russia, the U.S., South Korea and Japan — think of a new paradigm and abandon their entrenched positions which have combined to allow a hermit kingdom fuelled by rockets and starvation to destabilize a region of great potential.
Mr. Gilley is co-author, with Andrew J. Nathan, of “China’s New Rulers” (New York Review of Books, 2003).
“…a hermit kingdom fuelled by rockets and starvation…” That phrase alone is worth the newstand price of a copy of the WSJ.
Thanks for posting it Anonymous, I normally get a copy of WSJ each day but missed that one.
WSJ — essential reading for those who adhere to the politics of yesterday.
What I dont’ understand is why people think China will go into NK at all. Dr. Lankov wrote about this much better than I ever could.
China might go in if NK started a war first. Because it has no choice. Or China might go in if it had the unanimous support of SK/US/Japan/Russia/UN. Which is highly unlikely.
China will not attack Pyongyang for the same reason why the US 2nd Infantry will not start engage in pre-emptive attack. If Pyongyang DOES have a nuclear weapon, why would any sane country want to attack NK? NK, mind you, have close to zero natural resources (no oil like Iraq) and has 20 million hungry mouths with zero modern skills. It’s like China would be spending trillions of renminbi just so they can create additional migrant problems in Chinese cities.
Japan can become a nuclear power anytime they want. The Chinese might decide that it is not within their power to see a denuclearized Japan. They might not even have all that much fear about nuclearized Taiwan.
Taiwan is economically dependent on China. As soon as mainland cleans up their politics and institute a “sunshine” of their own, Taiwan could very well fall into China’s grasp irregardless of nuclear status.
On the otherhand, attacking NK is a guaranteed way to see death and mayhem. Heck, maybe Jiang Zemin thinks a war is a good population-control device and go in. Hmm..
China attacks foreign countries for several reasons - to prevent invasions from those countries (either by those countries or by third parties), as a punitive expedition or to annex its territory. In North Korea’s case, the first and third rationales don’t hold. And as far as a punitive expedition goes, for what is China punishing North Korea? It is creating a counterweight to American power in Northeast Asia that is tying down US troops on the Korean peninsula. For China, that is a positive, not a negative.
As for the supposed Chinese fear that North Korea’s aggressive body language will lead to American acquiescence to South Korea’s and Japan’s nuclearization, I doubt the Chinese actually share this fear. The difference between China and both Korea and Japan combined is that China is a continental-sized country, and its two neighbors are not. China can annihilate both countries and have nukes left over. Besides, it makes no sense for the US to agree to the nuclearization of either Japan or South Korea. It changes the whole security dynamic and Uncle Sam’s strategic calculations. It’s not clear whether the US would place its troops on the soil of a nuclear Japan or South Korea, for fear that they may get embroiled in a nuclear conflict not of Uncle Sam’s choosing.
Thomas Barnett is a dimwit. In East Asia, Uncle Sam is in the role of Great Britain. We are the offshore balancer. China plays the role of Napoleonic France, with a Grand Armee, and seemingly limitless resources with which to pursue the greater glory of Han empire. Barnett is suggesting that we ally with China, the modern equivalent of Napoleonic France, rather than Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, all of which are the equivalent of the continental powers that resisted France. It goes against basic strategic principles to ally with the strong against the weak, unless you’re set upon annexing the weaker states to your own territory. China is not a status quo power when it is strong. Having seen Chinese cities with my own eyes and compared their amenities to a number of other Asian cities, I can say for a fact that China is no longer the sick man of Asia.
Let me point out also that it is conservative, not neo-conservative, to rely upon a policy that threatens and delivers force in order to bend other nations to our will. A policy that relies on talk alone isn’t conservative - it’s detente-oriented or, in a word, Kissingerian. It’s a policy of managing perceived American decline as part of a program for euthanizing American influence abroad. Note that it is not particularly neo-conservative to use lofty language in order to weld international coalitions together to achieve national objectives. Roosevelt used the Four Freedoms speech in order to try to pursuade other countries to actively join in the fight against Fascism (with mixed success) - so that Uncle Sam would not have to carry so much of the weight (among the non-Communist anti-Fascist forces) against the enemy. Once the war ended, the Four Freedoms receded into history, its exhortatory purpose served. The European powers re-occupied their colonial holdings, one after another.
ZhangFei,
Perhaps the four freedoms did not survive the War because FDR did not survive the war. Or perhaps the post-war period was not what had been envisioned in 1939-41. By the way, you are partially incorrect in your statement on the European powers reoccupying their colonies. Britain’s “reoccupation” of the Indian subcontintent was only to allow a reasonablly peaceful transition to independence (and partition). Of course, Burma, Malaya, and Singapore were other matters.
First, when I wrote the first post, I was not describing technically an “invasion” situtation. China moving into an imploding NK would not be defined by China as an “invasion” just as it hasn’t by other nations in similar events.
I think the chances of China invading NK in the traditional sense is close to zero. Moving in if NK begins to implode quickly is a very different matter.
Now, to nulji maripkan ,
“Coward” is your word, not mine. It betrays where your heart and mine are at, not mine. You can flap your gums in Korean nationalism all you want, but it is distorting your analysis of what I wrote more than I distorted it.
To nulji maripkan and bluejean,
Nulji moved the discussion toward degrees of resistance. He was claiming China would be foolish to invade North Korea because the Korean people would naturally rise up and throw the Chinese out with a resistance on the scale of the Vietnamese against the US.
And although bluejeans is right that some Koreans did resist the Japanese colonization of Korea, there is no way it was close to the scale of the Vietnamese.
I also don’t agree a whole lot with bluejeans on the idea that in Korea’s case, it was the government caving into the Japanese while the population at large resisted. For every example of Korean organized resistance (in country), we can find more periods of relative peace and groups of Koreans that worked within the colonial system.
I hate discussions about collaboration, because I think they are too simple and nobody has a right to pass judgement on the people living in those times who didn’t live through them themselves.
But, Korean society as a whole did not provide a strong, consistent, prolonged active resistance to the Japanese
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