The Marmot’s Hole

First, we have the WaPo’s Anne Applebaum on why North Korea is China’s problem:

I am of course playing devil’s advocate here: I realize that the United States has long-standing obligations to Japan and that our half-century-plus presence on the Korean Peninsula has placed us at the center of this discussion. I understand our moral obligation to the South Koreans, too, even though many of them ceased to be grateful for our help a long time ago.

Yet it still seems very odd that American diplomats have to shoulder the burden of a problem they cannot solve — and odder still that they must do so on behalf of the one country that could solve it.

For not only is China the country with the most influence over North Korea, it is also, along with South Korea and Japan, one of the countries most under threat from North Korean nukes. After all, it is China, not the United States, that will be at the center of the new Asian arms race if Japan and South Korea feel compelled to get the bomb. It is China, not the United States, that would feel the effects of fallout if North Korea actually used its weapons. Although it isn’t clear whether North Korean missiles can reach Hawaii, it’s obvious that Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong are well within range. So shouldn’t this be China’s problem, not ours?

Well, I think the Chinese are operating under the assumption that a) the North won’t be firing their missiles at China, and b) it’s easier and, in the end, strategically beneficial to let the United States pay the political costs of either surrendering to North Korea’s nuclear extortion or combating North Korean proliferation attempts elsewhere. Reason b) is possible because the United States has, up to now, assumed the costs of twisting the arms of its regional allies who have dared to dream nuclear, and at any rate, a Japan or South Korea with the bomb doesn’t provoke the same kind of dread a nuclear North Korea or Iran does.

The other piece of interesting commentary comes to us via National Review Online, and concerns the new UN general secretary and blog fan Ban Ki-moon:

Despite this display of allied loyalty, nothing can hide South Korea’s increasing tendency to align with China—and protect the North. When Japan announced that it would beef up its strike capabilities in response to North Korean nuclear provocations, Seoul blamed Japan for increasing tensions. And this policy is a good reflection of popular sentiment: A recent poll has 40 percent of South Koreans blaming the United States for the nuclear standoff, whereas only 30 percent blame the North. Similarly, when North Korea announced plans to detonate an underground nuclear device, Beijing condemned the decision, but that was apparently the first time that China has singled North Korea out for any sort of criticism since the start of the talks.

This gives a sense of the direction that Bank Ki-moon is likely to take the United Nations next, and it may quickly make Washington nostalgic for the days of Kofi Annan. Whatever Annan’s faults, vagueness is not one of them, and he has not shied away from pointedly criticizing almost everybody at one time or another. Ban Ki-moon, on the other hand, is far more likely to sweeten every crisis with statements designed so delicately to avoid offending anybody that they may prove most effective as a cure for insomnia.

Another Kofi Anna tradition that his successor is unlikely to uphold is his readiness to discard the U.N. Charter’s cardinal principle of non-intervention “in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.” How Ban handles the Darfur situation will be a sign of things to come. In a misguided search for energy security, China has been militarily and financially supporting unsavory regimes in oil-rich countries like Sudan, where the political risk is prohibitive to private commercial investment. Accordingly, in its Security Council votes, China has proved among the strongest opponents of humanitarian intervention in situations like Darfur. Indeed, on the basis of “non-intervention,” China itself resists calls for human rights reform. It is hard to imagine that Ban will break with his long-standing support for China on these issues. The U.N.’s recent success in the field of humanitarian intervention—however limited—is likely to be an early casualty of the Ban secretariat.

I can only hope posting this doesn’t lead to any angry emails from the Banster. My hunch is that the Americans might be pleasantly surprised by Ban, whose record as Korean foreign minister is tarred somewhat by his his being placed in a situation in which he was often called upon to explain the inexplainable. Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see.