What role does China play in tensions between the United States and DPRK?

You might think that China was about to throw the DPRK under the bus, given widespread media reports the other day that President Xi Jinping gave a speech where he alluded to it as increasing tensions in the region (for example, Reuters). But thanks to a careful study of the statement, and the fact that the People’s Daily rebuked such misinterpretations the next day, we now know (h/t CTuttle) that the MSM and some others were at best taking Xi out of context.

Not that the desire for China to “do something” is lacking. Last week WaPo’s Anne Applebaum proposed that China gain in the world’s respect by cutting off supplies to Pyongyang and opening its border to refugees. Then on the past Sunday talking head circuit Sen. McCain and others were not that brutally specific but still called on China to “step up to the plate.”

Such discussions of course have been based on the mainstream narrative to the effect that the DPRK has been creating serious danger with its “provocations,” whereas the US has acted with restraint. The commenters and I have argued in two recent diaries (here and here, plus in scattered comments on other FDL posts) that the reverse is the case, that it is the US that has been doing the provoking. And there is now a detailed, carefully documented article at Counterpunch (h/t juliania) that makes the case for that understanding pretty definitive. For example,

the United States is working hard to persuade other nations to sanction the DPRK’s Foreign Trade Bank and is considering other ways in which it can bring about North Korea’s economic collapse. An unnamed U.S. State Department official remarked that there was still room for enlarging sanctions. “I don’t know what will succeed, but we haven’t ‘maxed out’; there is headroom, and we have to give it a try.”

U.S. officials have asked the European Union to sanction the Foreign Trade Bank, and further discussions are expected along those lines. Japan and Australia have already agreed to join the United States in sanctioning the bank, and Treasury Department official David Cohen and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have both asked China to do the same. President Obama made a personal phone call to Chinese President Xi Jinping, urging him to sanction the Foreign Trade Bank, and U.S. officials continue to pressure China, insisting that if China does not “crackdown” on North Korea, the U.S. will increase its military forces in Asia.

Another article published the next day generalizes the point.

But what about China, then? Is the pressure cited at the end of the above quote having an effect? Study of a Foreign Policy article reveals a mixed picture. At least below the level of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, “an increasing number of Chinese are calling for a tougher stance toward North Korea.” For example,

Read the rest of this entry →

The diary I posted three days ago, nominally about the views of four neocons on U.S. nuclear weapons, had comments totaling 45 as of last night, largely because the comments thread had morphed into a discussion of the ongoing Korean crisis. It seems desirable to continue that discussion in a way that is not diverted by the views of four foolish people that Obama is wrong to (allegedly) dial down the U.S. nuclear presence.

Contrary to mainstream media reports, is the Obama administration antagonizing the DPRK?

To begin, the commenters to that diary were largely in agreement that the U. S. announcement yesterday of intent to deploy an anti-missile system on the island of Guam was terrible, because it would be viewed by the leadership of the DPRK (popularly called “North Korea”) as a serious provocation: Although the move is being sold as a matter of defending U. S. Pacific territories, it gives the U.S. first-strike capability (just as was discussed for Nixon’s proposed ABM in 1969 and Reagan’s “Star Wars” in 1983): It can launch a nuclear attack on the DPRK in confidence that it can shoot down any missiles fired in return. Fortunately, however, the deployment will take “weeks,” according to the Guardian’s article on the subject. Not fortunate at all (what was thinking): If the DPRK feels provoked enough, it could decide it must act before the system arrives.

Of course, those who accept the current narrative that it is the DPRK that is doing the provoking will not be able to see this. Thus Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ is reporting that the Obama administration is now “dialing back” its posture after those B-2s and F-22s were sent over, “put[ting] the next steps in the playbook on hold,” and in the process reported the Pentagon’s claim that the anti-missile deployment was “defensive — rather than offensive” with a straight face.

It is also worth noting that yesterday’s WaPo editorial, while rejecting any proposal to actually talk to the DPRK, calls for tightening the screws on it by increased financial sanctions.

There is no question that the DPRK leadership views the situation as serious. The MSM are reporting today on “increased rhetoric” and moving a missile battery to the east coast, but the most significant development is the effective shutting down of the Kaesong industrial complex that has been operating jointly with the ROK (“South Korea”) since the early 2000s when Kim Dae Jung led the latter country.

In short, the situation is serious, and O and his acolytes are doing or saying all the wrong things.

Read the rest of this entry →

At first I missed it because it was on the “Sunday Opinion Page” instead of opposite the Editorial page, but yesterday a quartet of self-described “professionals with extensive experience in national security and defense policy” got together to write an essay in the Washington Post entitled “Obama’s ‘nuclear zero’ rhetoric is dangerous” (on-line version) or “Obama’s harmful nuclear illusions” (print edition).

Republican pundits gathered to encourage Obama to invest more in nuclear weapons.

Who are these worthies, you might ask? They are, namely (are you sitting down?): Douglas J. Feith, famous as one of the architects of the disastrous Iraq War, and whom the first commanding general of that war Tommy Franks once called “the f*cking stupidest guy on the face of the earth”; Frank J. Gaffney, columnist for the arch-conservative Washington Times, original signatory of the Statement of Principles of the Project for the New American Century, and anti-Muslim activist; James A. Lyons, retired Navy admiral and prominent critic of the Obama administration’s relation to last year’s attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya; and R. James Woolsey, former director of that delightful organization the CIA. And they say they are only part of a group of 20 people.

Their piece begins with the claim that the Obama administration has not done enough to counter “recent threats from North Korea.” It is not enough merely to adjust missile defenses, they say; rather, Obama should “rethink his basic approach to nuclear weapons policy” in response. This èxtraordinary assertion that an entire foreign policy is to be determined by the perceived hostility of a single small country of course relies on a certain common perception. This is that Pyongyang’s actions or posture have been the cause of tension in the Korean peninsula, rather than a symptom thereof, extending back to 1950 when it allegedly started the Korean War. The perception is certainly shared by the Obama administration at least in its public posture, by the establishment media, and even by some in FDL (see the comments thread to this post).

BTW this perception views as responses rather than provocations the continuous garrisoning of U.S. troops south of the DMZ for the past 60 years (numbering 28,500 as of 2011), numerous joint U.S.-ROK military “exercises” over the years, and the flying of nuclear-capable bombers from Missouri to the Korean peninsula last week; and it ignores the fact that there is disagreement on who started the Korean War. But that’s another story.

Having offered that point the quartet give a list of seven actions in the direction of nuclear disarmament they credit to O, whether or not accurately, from “opposition to developing a reliable, new nuclear warhead” to “endorsement of ‘nuclear zero.’” They then say:

But these policies have not yielded the hoped-for diplomatic benefits regarding North Korea and Iran. Their nuclear weapons programs progress, as do their programs to develop long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Thus is brought in that other current bogey man, Iran. What is ignored, of course, is that according to the best intelligence, at best Iran has not made any decision to convert the peaceful use of nuclear energy that it says is its goal into a weapons program.

From there the authors raise the dread specter of nuclear proliferation to still other countries if there is any weakening in the perception that the U.S. nuclear deterrent is weakening. That is, the logic is that any reduction in the arsenal that could destroy the solar system many times over (if delivery systems to the outer planets were developed) will somehow cause more nuclear weapons to be built in other countries.

I couldn’t take reading any more at that point, but the link is in the first paragraph above if you wish to do so. I think I do see why the paper did not put the piece on the more prestigious Op-Ed page.

Read the rest of this entry →

Greetings, all.

The menu today includes Compassionate Conservative, Honorary Hasbarist, and Liberal #1. My spleen gets less of a workout this time because the anti-Promethean Fox Guest is taking the day off, to leave room for a guest column on a local matter (transportation legislation in Virginia) that I will skip.

Before getting to the three mouseketeers, though, I must mention a feature article masquerading as a news item (front page, though below the fold) in today’s WaPo, on FLOTUS as Oscar presenter. Not even those of us who wouldn’t be caught dead watching Hollywood’s annual paean to itself could avoid learning that Michelle O was charged with presenting the BP award to “Argo,” from inside the WH while standing next to troops in dress uniform. (Thus some of us have perforce developed opinions on what this was all about, for which I direct you to the comments thread following fatster’s roundup for yesterday.)

The article first quotes the FLOTUS communication director, to the effect that MO accepted the task because as a movie lover she was honored to be asked. As for criticism, the article says (after an intervening history of the relations between presidential couples and Hollywood), it has been of two kinds. Conservatives seem to have tweeted that it’s a matter of the Obamas ingratiating themselves everywhere. TV critics, for their part, “panned it as part of a disjointed Oscar ceremony.” But no critic has cited the fact that the film glorifies the CIA or the current villainous status of its villain, Iran; if they had, surely the paper of record in the nation’s capital would have mentioned it, right? (Never mind what the international TV news channels have pointed out: at least Iran itself has protested on such grounds.)

To the subject. From his perch “in the packed gym at Blessed Sacrament School in Northwest Washington,” CC waxes eloquent about the improved opportunities these days for people with disabilities such as Down’s syndrome or autism, particularly in athletics with the Special Olympics. He is watching an SO-sponsored basketball event where some of the players could not make a basket without the referee allowing a few extra tries. Nonetheless, he says,

By giving opportunities to those with intellectual disabilities, we discover what interests them. This includes sporting competition — and the inalienable right to put on a skirt and lead cheers. At halftime, the Joy cheerleading squad performance includes some impressive splits. The sight of young women with Down syndrome and other disabilities breaking the cheerleading barrier is no longer unusual. It is still better than Beyonce.

CC also reminds us that things were not always so, and that even today a fetus that betrays Down’s syndrome is often aborted. Then he concludes:

Everyone, it turns out, is dependent and vulnerable — and sacred and able. And the most remarkable thing about that discovery is the sheer joy of it.

I am not going to endorse the implied criticism of the pregnant woman who believes she simply would not be able to care for a child with Down’s and decides to abort. As CC himself says, “raising a child with a disability … remains difficult in ways that are hard for outsiders to imagine.” Still, I can’t fault his giving voice to the fact that all human life is capable of positive experience. I only wish he would express it in a less cloying manner.

HH’s topic, as it was two weeks ago, is the Obama administration’s supposed inaction where action is needed, namely in Syria. There he chastised the administration for not implementing a no-fly zone against Assad’s planes and not supplying the rebels with weapons (or not openly, I guess he meant, since one hears that the CIA is helping out), ultimately accusing it of “looking the other way” in the face of disaster. Today he first reminds us that at the end of David Lean’s film, T. E. Lawrence tries to unite the individual tribe-oriented Arab leaders to defend Damascus in 1918, but is unsuccessful so that the city falls. HH observes at the end of the piece that the battle for Damascus is joined again in the present. In the interim, he cites a new insider expose, to be published in April but with underground copies already available, to the effect that domestic political considerations have trumped the opinions of seasoned policy experts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Thus, HH infers, the same process must be at work for Syria. That is why Obama has done nothing to “contain the civil war” via a no-fly zone and arming the insurgents.

You read that right: to favor one side in a war is to contain the war. Sure.

L1′s piece is something of a jeremiad against coal as fuel. He begins:

The test of President Obama’s seriousness about addressing climate change is not his pending decision on the much-debated Keystone XL pipeline. It’s whether he effectively consigns coal-fired power plants — one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions — to the ashcan of history.

Later on he throws a bone to the “tens of thousands of demonstrators” who came to Washington the weekend before last, acknowledging their concern, but says the tar sands oil “is likely to be extracted eventually, regardless of the pipeline decision.” (Some FDLers have their own critique of that rally, but that’s another story.) Obama, he says, can act now to reduce global warming, independent of Congress, by instructing the EPA to escalate the process of tightening the rules on carbon emissions from coal-fired plants, “and effectively guarantee that no new coal-fired plants would be built.” Rather, the new ones would use natural gas. That fuel, admittedly, has its own problems, but to phase out fossil fuels completely “is a journey of many years.” Obama should act now on coal, which will “take us many miles down the road.”

In short, we have no choice but to use fossil fuels in one way or another for the indefinite future, even if we can get rid of one of them.

My response is: renewables, renewables, renewables. I have no problem with shuttering the coal-fired plants, but has L1 been so shell-shocked by the Republicans’ feeding off the Solyndra debacle that he cannot propose anything positive at all in the direction that everyone knows will have to be the answer? As FDL’s Phoenix Woman pointed out the other day, electrical generation from renewable sources has seen a considerable increase lately, in spite of subsidization of dirty energy sources and of obstruction by their representatives. But either L1 is unaware of this development or is simply too obsessed with abolishing one particular fuel that he doesn’t feel like suggesting any measure to enhance the trend.

Of course, it’s possible that that will be the subject of his next column, but I won’t hold my breath.

Given that my last piece about WaPo scored fourth place in a Google search of its subject matter the day after I posted it (details @ comment 10 here), why not try again?

To emulate Marion in Savannah’s daily NYT Op-Ed report somewhat — I’ll skip the breakfast rundown — today we have Liberal #2 (aka E. J. Dionne, Jr.), Compassionate Conservative (Michael Gerson), Honorary Hasbarist (Richard Cohen), and Fox Guest (Charles Lane). Liberal #1 (Eugene Robinson) at least used to write on Tuesday, but not today for whatever reason. Here is what they say.

Liberal2, reminding us that he is a liberal Catholic, concerns himself with the legacy of Papa Ratzi upon the latter’s decision to relinquish the shoes of the fisherman. He writes with some authority since he once corresponded with then-Cardinal Ratzinger. He finds the man to be a paradoxical figure, one who was alarmed enough by the student revolts of the 1960s to fight liberalizing trends in the Church — thus his current campaign against gay marriage — but one who has unusual compassion for the poor and downtrodden. He thinks the nearly unprecedented decision to resign was “inspired.” because “it will give the church a chance to confront its crises — and its opportunities.”

Maybe so, but L2 does not trouble us with the well known problem of the then-Cardinal covering up child abuse or the possibility that the resignation really has to do with the resurrection of that scandal in the current case of Cardinal Mahony, where previously unpublished documents may yet come to light. Nor does he notice that Benedict either appointed or had a hand in appointing all of the Cardinals who will vote on his successor, so that he might be able to continue to guide the Church with an unseen hand. (These points are discussed by FDLer Pam Spaulding and her commenters here.)

Compassionate Conservative takes the occasion of tonight’s SOTU address to reflect on past such occasions, and unsurprisingly zeroes in on one by his former employer, Bush 43, in January 2003. Also unsurprisingly, CC does not mention “the sixteen words” in that speech that falsely claimed Iraq was trying to get a lot of Uranium from Niger, but rather extols at some length the proposal that would become The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which did make a dent in the global epidemic. Fine; I’ll give W points for that, his one foreign policy achievement, and for his respect for the Spanish language, although that’s all.

Honorary Hasbarist only mentions Israel in passing for a change, noting with thinly disguised satisfaction that it can attack the Syrian government’s air defenses any time it wants. His actual concern today is to criticize the Obama administration for not taking sides in the Syrian conflict more than it has, to implement a no-fly zone for that government’s aircraft and, especially, to supply weapons to those of the insurgents “who could be trusted with them.” For the CIA should be able to distinguish these worthies from the al-Qaeda-linked forces. (Right. As if the CIA could spare the resources from finding out where the “terrorist” funerals will take place in Pakistan so that it can attack the mourners.) Thus, says HH, the “Obama Doctrine” that everyone has been waiting for is here, and is called “looking the other way.” Sure, we really need to spread the American eagle’s wings further in that region.

Fox Guest disparages the Obama administration’s interest in electric cars, which others have certainly said has experienced roadblocks, as a “fantasy.” He cites such points as an American Physical Society symposium where it was concluded that “all-electric vehicles will not replace the standard American family car in the foreseeable future.” But the real target appears to be the outgoing Energy Secretary:

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, he of the Nobel Prize in physics, epitomized the regnant blend of sanctimony and technocratic hubris. He once told journalist Michael Grunwald that photosynthesis is “too damn inefficient,” and that DOE might help correct that particular error of evolution.

This does not quite reach the ignonimous level of the writer’s previous attempt to enlist the image of the wounded Gabrielle Giffords in support of Wisconsin Governor Walker’s attack on collective bargaining; still, it has a stench about it. (That cruise ship stranded in the Caribbean, without working toilets, comes to mind.) What Chu actually discussed with Grunwald, according to the latter, was the possibility of genetically-engineered microbes that would use a more efficient process than photosynthesis to produce fuel. To me this sounds more like finding a method to improve on natural evolution than “correcting its error.” And I don’t know what the pointed reference to Chu’s Nobel is supposed to prove: Several of the members of the American Physical Society that FG thinks is in love with gas-guzzlers also have one. (The politics of the Physics Prize may be as Byzantine as those for Peace or Economics, but that’s another story.)

The kicker is FG’s last sentence: “I might add that Chu does not own a car.” I guess the idea here is that he can’t competently recommend what kind of car people should buy if he doesn’t even drive one, but to me it suggests that the alternative to the electric car is not the individually owned internal combustion engine in the first place, but mass transit.

Phew. My respect for Marion in Savannah knows no bounds: I sure would not have the stomach to read these things every day.