China Syndrome

China in the White House

This week, China, economic superpower of the future, visited the US, economic superpower of the present. The results were most revealing.

In a remarkable move, the US publicly sided with China over Taiwan, an event the Diary can surely declare unprecedented (the New York Times said the move shifted the US “closer to China’s position in a diplomatic dance in which every half-twist is viewed as a potential pirouette”, but we can do without that kind of poetry.)

On Monday, as Wen Jiabao and his officials headed for Washington, the Bush administration issued a stark warning to Taiwan not to hold a referendum calling on China to withdraw all missiles aimed at Taiwan and to renounce the use of force against the island. The referendum is widely believed to be a push for Taiwanese independence, favoured by the incumbent Chen Shui-bian administration, but fiercely opposed by China and formally opposed by the US.

The Taiwanese president announced that the referendum plans are “defensive” and are still set to go ahead on 20 March 2004.

The NYT judges the US admonition a “significant concession” to the Chinese.

In a phrase of priceless irony, Bush declared: “We oppose any unilateral decision, by either China or Taiwan, to change the status quo. The comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally that change the status quo, which we oppose.”

Sitting in the Oval Office, Communist prime minister of Red China, Wen Jiabao, said: “We very much appreciate the position adopted by President Bush”.

No doubt they do. Bush’s opposition may scupper Chen’s plans. Even if the referendum does still go ahead (and it may not), lack of US support, actively solicited by Chen, could backfire on the Taiwanese leader.

China, you may have noted, is making repeated appearances in the Diary of late. Two weeks ago, the Diary prescribed a re-branding of the nation whose economy, as Globolog’s Globofact’s ‘04 remind us, will overtake that of Britain by 2005, and, as Goldman Sachs has predicted, be the world’s second largest by 2015. And last week, “China took the Diary up on its challenge, and announced plans to release a new CD of Mao-Tse-tung songs, sung by hip, happening 20-year-olds.”

The latest US move is the result of two factors: economics and North Korea. Bush called China’s extraordinary economic growth “one of the great achievements of our time”. “Our relationship is good and strong,” he said, “and we are determined to keep it that way for the good of our respective peoples and for the sake of peace and prosperity in the world.”

In a controversial choice of words, Bush went on to describe the US and China as “partners in diplomacy”, admitting that “we spent a lot of time talking about North Korea here.”

China has committed itself to helping scupper North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The six-nation summit talks about the crisis were, of course, hosted by China in Beijing. Bush does not want to deal with North Korea alone.

Sino-US relations have been looking up of late. The economic reality of Chinese power is changing minds in Washington. Not even the recent handshake in Panama between US secretary of state Colin Powell and President Chen Shui-bian could undermine the diplomatic embrace of the superpowers. There was a significant amount of mutual gushing on the White House lawn this week, and a considerable amount of pomp.

But what is all this “partners in diplomacy” and “status quo” stuff? Only a few weeks ago the Diary did some pretty heavy gushing of its own when Bush delivered his stirring speech promising to spread democracy to the four corners of the globe. Now, as soon as Taiwan wants to exercise its democratic voice, Bush gets all nervous, arguing the case for cautious diplomacy with the authoritarian Communist mainland – in fact, telling the Taiwanese they must not even talk about a referendum, let alone hold one. Meanwhile, Wen stands in the Rose Garden and cites Abe Lincoln as an example of a man who successfully held together a union, just like he is trying to do.

Within a matter of days, idealism makes way for Realpolitik. The NYT refers to what it calls “the volatility of the American political system. Presidents frequently come into office vowing to lend a hand to beleaguered fellow democrats in Taiwan, then gradually back away when they encounter geopolitical realities in Asia.”

For three decades, Washington has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” towards the Taiwan question – in which it neither supports nor opposes full independence for Taiwan and formally maintains a policy of “One China”, even though everyone understands the US is on Taiwan’s side and willing to go to war in its defence if necessary.

Understood?

Whether the policy of “strategic ambiguity” has been abandoned this week is unclear (as is often the case with all things ambiguous). A senior Bush administration official put it like this: “What you’re seeing here is the dropping of the ambiguity for both sides because we cannot sort of imply to the Taiwan side that we’re sort of agnostic towards moves toward Taiwan independence. But at the same time, we’ve got to make it clear to the Chinese that this is not a green light for you to contemplate the use of force or coercion against Taiwan.”

OK?

Apparently, the BBC disagrees with the White House. “It is difficult to characterise what took place on Tuesday as a shift in American policy,” it judged.

Difficult is the word.

Ambiguous or not, administration officials felt the need to enter the White House press room after the Wen-Bush confab and insist the US is not “abandoning support for Taiwan’s democracy or for the spread of freedom.”

(Read more: Nicholas D. Kristof, The Project for a New American Century)

Nuclear freeze?

Meanwhile, the latest in the ongoing North Korea saga is that it looks highly unlikely that there will be further six-nation talks in 2003.

As the five other nations pieced together a new proposal to entice North Korea to the negotiating table, North Korea launched a pre-emptive strike on Monday, saying it would freeze its nuclear programme if the US agreed to a list of concessions. The list of demands was not dissimilar to those made by North Korea in the first round of talks in August. They include removing North Korea from the list of terrorist states, a lifting of economic sanctions and the provision of energy aid.

The North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said an agreement on this “first-stage step” (part of a “package deal” which would involve guarantees of North Korean security, economic aid, and full diplomatic recognition) was essential if talks were to proceed.

But concessions, particularly by the US, only go so far. The other five nations are talking “co-ordinated steps”, very different to the North Korean “first-stage step”.

Such is diplomacy.

The five-nations plan, as much as anybody can tell (it has not been released), appears to offer North Korea security guarantees in return for “verifiable disassembly of its nuclear facilities” (New York Times, BBC), but no economic aid.

The US rejected the North Korean offer. “The goal of the United States is not for a freeze of the nuclear programme. The goal is to dismantle a nuclear weapons programme in a verifiable and irreversible way,” said President Bush.

(As the Diary went to press (or into cyberspace) news broke in the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo of “fresh activity” at the Yongbyon nuclear plant in North Korea. A US satellite detected “signs of vapour and fumes” rising from a boiler at the lab.)

Crossing the line

It’s been a big week for Japan.

“We are not going to war,” said prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, reassuring his nation. Nevertheless, the cabinet approval this week of the plan to send up to 1,000 Japanese troops to Iraq remains highly controversial.

Under Japan’s pacifist constitution, the troops will be limited to a humanitarian role. No Japanese soldier has been killed in action since 1945. This is Japan’s biggest military operation since the end of the second world war. Polls show that two-thirds of the population are against the plan.

On 29 November, two Japanese diplomats were killed in northern Iraq. They were buried last weekend in a state funeral.

A line has definitely been crossed. The soldiers will have the means and the authorisation to defend themselves if attacked. But is self-defence consistent with pacifism?

Cautiously, Koizumi says the times have changed: “The situation in Iraq is severe. We know it is not necessarily safe. But our Self-Defence Forces must fulfil this mission. The ideals and the will of Japan as a nation are being questioned. Japan’s spirit is being tested. We are no longer in a situation where we can only pay money. We must perform our utmost. The United States is Japan’s only ally, and it is striving very hard to build a stable and democratic government in Iraq. Japan must be a trustworthy ally for the United States.”

“It is epoch making in that it will combat against hostile parties,” Toshiyuki Shikata of Teiyko University, a former Ground Self-Defence General, told the International Herald Tribune. “This has never happened. It was too cowardly before.”

700 protestors demonstrated outside Koizumi’s offices on Sunday. The opposition Democratic Party called it “the first big misstep in the diplomatic and national security policies for the future of Japan.”

Big in Burkina Faso

Finally, we head to Burkina Faso, a nation shamefully neglected by the Diary over the years.

Burkina Faso, for those not up to speed, means “land of honest men”.

The name was the inspiration of Thomas Sankara, the military leader who took power in a 1983 coup in the then Upper Volta. Sankara ruled until 1987 when his own minister of state, Blaise Compaore, staged another coup, deposing and executing his boss.

Honest men, indeed.

Anyway, history lesson over. This week, the BBC reports, Burkina Faso forgot about the men, and focused on their womenfolk.

Thirteen contestants battled it out for the crown of Miss “Pog-Bedre” (or Large Lady), in a beauty contest in the capital, Ouagadougou.

The contest was jointly organised by the Ministry for the Promotion of Women. The BBC says it was “designed to overturn the western criteria of selecting beauty queens”, and coincided with the Miss World contest in China. The winner, Carine Riragendanwa, weighed in at 117kg.

The contestants, who paraded their assets in bathing suits, weighed as little as 75kg, or as large as 130kg.

The triumphant Miss “Pog-Bedre” (as Miss Riragendanwa can now proudly call herself) received gold jewellery, a selection of dresses, and a motorbike, presumably with a set of spare tyres.

Quotes of the week

“Howard Dean is the only candidate who has been able to inspire at the grassroots level all over this country the kind of passion and enthusiasm for democracy and change and transformation of America that we need in this country.”
Former US vice-president and unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2000, Al Gore, endorsing the campaign of Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential ticket.

“The only real plan out there.”
US secretary of state Colin Powell on the ‘roadmap’ for Middle East peace.

“The power of the media to create and destroy human values comes with great responsibility. Those who control the media are accountable for its consequences.”
An extract from the summary of the international court in Arusha, Tanzania, where three news executives were convicted of genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

“Anyone wishing to destabilise Zimbabwe, take care ... We can unleash legal force and violence, which we are permitted to do.”
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe

“The attackers are rednecks in the sense of rural baddies. Round here is prime farming land given to them by the regime and they have a lot to lose in a democratic Iraq.”
US Lt. Col. Aubrey Garner of 1-68 Armoured Battalion stationed in the northern Iraqi city of Balad.

“Sure it’s not quite politically correct, but what better way is there to get guys to notice that the president is a bozo?”
Eleanor Vast-Binder a participant in Michigan’s “Babes Against Bush” pin-up calendar, launched this week.

“We are not fighting for Saddam. We are fighting for freedom and because the Americans are Jews ... The principle is based on religion and tribal loyalties. The religious principle is that we cannot accept to live with infidels. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be on him, said, ‘Hit the infidels wherever you find them.’ We are also a tribal people. We cannot allow stranger to rule over us.”
Kashid Ahmad Saleh, a fighter in the Iraqi “resistance”, speaking to Ian Fisher of the New York Times.

“I am only myself, a sincere person who doesn’t bend to conformity.”
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi

Contact the Diary: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net