Bush, the Texas Straight Shooter: Chen and Kim Feel the Sting

Bush, the Texas Straight Shooter: Chen and Kim Feel the Sting

By Tom Plate
Pacific Perspectives Columnist

LOS ANGELES -- Much of the president's time last week was spent worrying about Asia. This was time well spent. George W. Bush does not possess a spectacular talent for geopolitical nuance, but he can focus as intently as a Texas rancher eyeing a cattle rustler when a major issue hits his radar screen. The recent Asian focus was mainly on China and Korea, but the implications for the entire region were huge.

The Asian economy is becoming the globe's leading wealth generator. Its aggregate gross domestic product grew by almost 6 percent this year and will probably grow at an even faster rate next year. China's extraordinary surge continues, Japan's recovery finally seems doable, the normally prodigious economies of Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea -- rocked to their cores in recent years -- look to be getting back on track, and India is beginning to shape up into the giant that many experts predict it should become.

For the United States, struggling with a huge federal deficit and mounting costs associated with the war on terror and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for Asian political stability is practically the newest foreign-policy mantra. For Asia and America are today joined at the economic hip. New figures confirm not only that giant Japan and China are primary holders of U.S. government bonds, but Singapore, with a mere population of less than 4 million, is, incredibly, the No. 1 foreign holder of U.S. corporate bonds. This tells you a lot about the emerging geo-economic shape of the
globe.

Undoubtedly, the key to continuing Asian-U.S. prosperity is a mature, stable and mutually profitable U.S.-China relationship. Bush went a long distance to that end with his incredible public admonition to Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian to cut out the loose campaign talk about a possible island-wide referendum on formal independence from the mainland.

"The comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan," said Bush, with astonishing bluntness, "indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose."

The tremendous American stake in the Asian status quo is scarcely lost on this Republican president. Asian instability is the only possible outcome of a revived Cold War between Washington and Beijing. In welcoming China's No. 2 -- Premier Wen Jiaboa -- to the White House (Dec.  9), Bush unexpectedly declaimed China and America as "partners in diplomacy."

Imagine the divisive domestic U.S. political reaction had such a chummy and unambiguous utterance come from a Democratic president! But aside from a smattering of nattering nabobs of neo-con negativism, most Americans can take that thought in stride without worrying about cracks in the president's patriotism.

Thus it was entirely clear, for all the world to see, that the big diplomatic winner of the week was Wen -- and that the big loser was Chen.

Less clear, perhaps, is the emergence of another big loser: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.

For, with Wen in the wings and not objecting, Bush bluntly rejected a new North Korean so-called peace offer. Pyongyang proposed to re-freeze its nuclear program in return for aid and security. Bush proposed that the nukes be eliminated without preconditions.

The Chinese, sharing a porous border with North Korea, and increasingly sharing U.S. disdain for the difficult Pyongyang regime, are obviously caught in the middle and will work hard diplomatically to split the difference. But with Wen returning to Beijing with Bush in the bag on Taiwan, North Korea's Kim may now be skating on thinner ice than ever.

If that realization does permeate the policy permafrost in Pyongyang, a historic diplomatic breakthrough in the Korean peninsula may not be so far off.  China doesn't want North Korean monkey-business mucking up the extremely advantageous trade traffic with South Korea and the United States. Japan doesn't want North Korean missiles flying over its head, especially now that its prime minister has publicly committed about 800 military and support personnel to Iraq. And South Korea doesn't want the Bush administration to take too hard a line toward the North -- or President Roh Moon-hyun's political popularity will go further south as he proceeds with plans to dispatch thousands of troops to Iraq, as Bush devoutly desires.

Alas, in the final analysis, a negotiated settlement with the North will require finesse, not force. Beijing is more than happy to accommodate Pyongyang and Washington by hosting the six-party talks as long as both sides are mutually accommodating. But such a process will require the geopolitical nuances for which neither Kim nor Bush is famous. These two are not an ideal duo for a diplomatic tango. At this point, a prolonged tangle -- something neither side can afford ­- looks more like it.

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Tom Plate is a professor of Policy and Communication Studies at UCLA. He is a regular columnist for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International, the South China Morning Post, The Straits Times and the Honolulu Advertiser. He is a member of the World Economic Forum, and the Pacific Council on International policy. The author of five books, he has worked at TIME, the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Mail of London. He established the Asia Pacific Media Network in 1998 and was its director until 2003.

For publication and reprint rights, contact Tom Plate at tplate@ucla.edu or John Simpson (john.simpson@latsi.com) of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International.

The views expressed above are those of the author and are not necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.

Date Posted: 12/12/2003