March 3, 2003

AN ODD COUPLE FRAMING THE IRAQ AND NORTH KOREA DEBATE

By Tom Plate

Mahathir shouts, but no one listens; Powell stays cool, but everyone disagrees

Together, this week these two political figures -- the U.S. secretary of state and the long-reigning Malaysian prime minister -- framed the worldwide debate on emerging U.S. policy in Iraq and North Korea.

Powell, who was visiting Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul, faced the tougher Asian audience by far. The Japanese are unhappy over the recent escalation of tension between Pyongyang and Washington, and unwilling to shoulder any of the financial costs of a U.S.-led war on Iraq, as they did in 1991. While they didn't overtly balk at Powell's insistence on a multilateral approach to re-engaging North Korea, they privately grumbled that if the Bush administration hadn't thrown cold water on Seoul's Sunshine Policy, there would be no multinational need to cope with the North Korean crisis now.

The Japanese, of course, are too polite to say that. Indeed, even after North Korea moved to reactivate its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and launch a short-range missile earlier this week, Japan wisely played it cool. "We are not thinking about protesting to North Korea," declared Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi.

It was more or less the same reaction to Powell among the Chinese. Washington hopes that Beijing will lean on Pyongyang. But China believes that if North Korea is leaned on too oafishly by anyone, the whole country may keel over and millions of refugees will spill over into China and South Korea.

As a consolation prize to Powell -- for the Chinese recognize him as the most reasonable high-level interlocutor they have in Washington -- they agreed to continue back-channel pressures to keep Kim Jong Ill from going off the deep end. And they gave no indication that a Chinese veto would stand in the way of what the U.S. wants to do in Iraq, as unenthused as the Chinese are about what President George W. Bush wants to do.

In Seoul, Powell conferred with Roh Moo Hyun, the new president of South Korea, once America's most staunch Asian ally. Reflecting popular sentiment, the former labor lawyer ran for office bashing the United States in much the same way U.S. presidential candidates ritualistically bash Beijing (and who, once in office, then get serious). Powell returned home having papered over the serious rupture in the bilateral relationship that was triggered by the Bush administration's determination to quash any semblance of softness toward the North.

There was certainly no softness in the heart of Mahathir in Kuala Lumpur, the site of the 13th summit assemblage of the nonaligned nations. If Powell's style is cool, Mahathir's is generally anything but. Pandering to the exasperation of the delegates representing 114 developing nations, the summit's host tore into the West -- and, to some extent, extremists in his own world -- for frightening the living daylights out of everyone.

"The world now lives in fear," he said in his keynote speech. "We are afraid of everything. We are afraid of flying, afraid of certain countries, afraid of bearded Asian men, afraid of the shoes of airlines passengers, of letters and parcels, of white powder."

Mahathir, who is stepping down soon, after more than two decades in power, was one of the first Asian leaders to back the Bush administration's war in Afghanistan. But this week, he intensified his criticism of the United States for both its high moral tone (as if, he suggested, only Western whites had a monopoly of rectitude) and for choosing war to resolve the Iraqi crisis. It's "a revival of the old European trait of wanting to dominate the world (invariably involving) injustice and oppression of people of other ethnic origins and colors," he said, warning that "It is no longer just a war against terrorism. It is in fact a war to dominate the world -- i.e., the chromatically different world."

Having painted the world in such terms, he offered another disturbing thought: "The result of this confrontation between the haves and the have-nots, the developed and the developing, is a world that is practically ungovernable."

Mahathir's style -- he shouted at the top of his lungs, belittled globalization, took gratuitous jabs at Israel -- was as bombastic as Powell's was low-key. Alas, for most Westerners, that style too often overshadowed his substance. If Mahathir understood that Westerners are not so hard of hearing, he might find more of us less inclined to cover our ears.

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:

Meet the Al Qaeda of the World Economic System (February 24, 2003)

Under the Glare of a Global Microscope (February 17, 2003)

No Pause for the Chinese Space Program (February 10, 2003)

The Pendulum Swing on China vs. Japan (February 3, 2003)

Columns From Davos:

Sunshine in Davos? (January 27, 2003)

Hawkish Policy Best Defended By the Dove (January 26, 2003)