January 6, 2003

CAN CHINESE DIPLOMACY TURN OVER A NEW CARD?

By Tom Plate

It's show and tell time on the super-heated Korean peninsula

LOS ANGELES -- Is China's foreign policy deck of cards now all negotiation and diplomacy rather than shrill confrontation and bizarre reclusiveness? For all appearances, this indeed is the dominant face card of modern Chinese diplomacy today.

Instructing its diplomats around the world that they are now pretty much in the driver's seat, the ruling elite of the most populous nation wants an image of negotiated approaches to issues and tensions. This arises not from mushy internationalism but from a precise calculation of national interest -- the desire to expand the Chinese economy, undistracted by side issues, ruined by costly wars or debilitated by an impasse with the United States.

But can Beijing keep its hawks from pushing panic buttons and reminding the world of the bad old China? That's the millennial issue, to be sure; but, whatever the motive, Chinese diplomats these days, for the first time in memory, feel empowered by their Beijing bosses to advance a consistent diplomatic approach to virtually every issue. Even for the ever-contentious Taiwan imbroglio, they are to play it cool and display as best as possible the unruffled feathers of a dove.

And it's not always just nice-talk. Regarding Taiwan, for example, notice the sudden decision of Beijing's all-powerful State Council to leave the door open to regular direct flights between the offshore island and the mainland. That's unprecedented. Regarding the shape of the government coming to power soon, note its emerging texture -- far more technocratic than ideological. Holly Mao!

To test the current temperature of a high-level Chinese diplomat, I recently called on Zhong Jianhua, China's diplomatic representative on America's West Coast. In an extensive interview, the former director general of China's consular department in the Foreign Ministry underscored the new diplomatic image of China: that no foreign-policy position was immune to review, that China wanted anything but violence with Taiwan, that the rise of an increasingly assertive middle class throughout China would inevitably put the nostrums of even legendary leaders like Deng Xiaoping to the test, and that even the harsh policy on dissidents was far from frozen in cement.

Diplomatically speaking, of course, China's key relationships include the United States and -- in East Asia -- North and South Korea, not to mention Japan and Russia. But no nation is more important to China than the United States, its largest commercial market, and the sole power capable of inflicting mortal harm. Not surprisingly, then, Zhong Jianhua struck an upbeat note about President George Bush, whom he depicted as a politician who'd quickly come a long distance in recognizing the need for China and the United States to forge a common-sense appreciation of each other's core national-security needs. Flatly predicted Consul General Zhong, "If there is to be a serious bilateral bump, it will be because of something completely unpredictable."

But that bump -- more like the surfacing of a gigantic whale -- may just have materialized, in the form of new tension on the two-Koreas issue. This is bad news for the Chinese, not just the Koreans. Beijing is stuck with long-standing ideological ally North Korea, pure dead weight on the Chinese full-steam-ahead economy. Pyongyang takes economic and some military aid from China and returns little but grief, mainly in the form of refugees into China or that out-of-the-blue 1998 missile test shot that somehow arched over Japan. Beijing doesn't need this; it needs, for starters, powerhouse South Korea's economic trade and cooperation.

Once opposed to reunification of the Koreas, China now could live with it -- if the peninsula were made non-nuclear and non-threatening. In late 1999, that possibility seemed closer than ever; but the incoming Bush administration -- with a skeptical Republican right wing looking over its shoulder and a prodigiously anti-Communist Texan at the helm -- slowed the process down to a crawl.

Sure, a tough-guy approach of isolating -- rather than negotiating with -- North Korea might make sense (and in fact would have moral value) if Pyongyang hadn't already isolated itself and if the decades-long tough U.S. stance in South Korea, backed by nearly 40,000 troops, had made Pyongyang more sensible. It hasn't: North Korea is still capable of almost anything. That's why it'd be wrong now to create moral standards that could have the ultimate practical effect of sending Seoul into flames.

So what's obviously needed is a jump-start of the diplomatic process that Bush has been devaluing. Who can come to the rescue? South Korean President-elect Roh Moo Hyun is too new. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has little diplomatic powder left after his bold trip to Pyongyang last year. Russian President Vladimir Putin has some leverage, but not much. And the Bush administration -- showing symptoms of diplomatic bipolar disorder: periodic manic attacks of Texan tough love followed by listless rounds of lackluster diplomacy -- seems off-balance.

One outside force that could prove effective is China -- presumably Pyongyang would listen to its last ally on Earth -- but China must do more than stand by and watch. In coordination with Seoul and Tokyo, and by the avoidance of grandstanding that would cause the Bush administration to look bad in the region, Beijing should stop playing only face cards. If the Chinese government has a hole card, now is the time to show it. That would be further evidence that the new Chinese diplomacy is more than card games.

The above weekly column has just appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser, The South China Morning Post and The Straits Times of Singapore. The author, Tom Plate, is a regular columnist at these three papers. The column also appears in other world newspapers, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Japan Times and The Korea Times. Email him at: tplate@ucla.edu.

For publication and reprint rights, contact the author directly or John Simpson (john.simpson@latsi.com) of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International.

Previous Columns:

Stunning Victory For Korean Reform Candidate (December 31, 2002)

Needed: A World Passion For Tolerance (December 24, 2002)

Historic Election In South Korea (December 17, 2002)

Some Dare Call It Treason (December 10, 2002)