towards less brazenness

In 2002, as I recall, the magazine Strategy and Management (and isn’t that a great title for a publication dealing with internal Chinese politics) had its publishing license revoked for reprinting some unflattering thoughts by senior Chinese figures on their relationship with North Korea. There’s also an apocryphal story from the eighties about Deng Xiaoping giving Kim Il Sung a bollocking after Chinese aid money – and China wasn’t rich at the time – meant to go towards industrial and agricultural support somehow being diverted into the production of gigantic bronze statues of Kim Il Sung.

So we’ve known for a long time that there’s a certain level of tension between Beijing and Pyongyang, and also maybe what the MFA actually meant when he called on Washington to deal appropriately with Wikileaks. Even so, some of yesterday’s revelations on the subject need to be treated with caution. The proposal that China is ready to abandon the North to reunification comes originally from a South Korean politician talking to US diplomats. What we actually know here is what the South Koreans want the Americans to think about what China thinks about North Korea; or did at the time the cable was written.

It may represent a section of opinion in China, but that hasn’t been reflected in policy over the past year or so. Beijing’s been very closely involved at all levels in underwriting the latest Kim succession, pushing the North Eastern provinces to invest, building infrastructure and piling food into the country. The obvious implication of this is that it’s making a big effort to put Pyongyang under closer supervision in the hope of levering it open economically: fewer bronze statues and less brazenness all round. As I’ve said before, the obvious international parallel is the US and Israel. Both senior partners proceed on the grounds that if we hug them closer we can get them to do what we want.

The results appear to be similar as well. Perhaps today’s confirmation that Beijing is itself looking at reunification as an end state can be taken as a warning to the North that it has options too. It’s certainly the first time I’ve seen any Chinese officials come forward and state that they envision a Kim free future for Korea. But the same officials are also signalled something else.

"We do not have an effective way to influence them. Sometimes when we try it only makes things worse," a senior Chinese diplomat said.

Reunification is going to be a slow process. The entire North is going to have to be rebuilt from the ground up and, in practical terms, the only country with the available capital to divert to that is China. Or at any rate, it's the only country that has demonstrated a real willingness to divert it.

Thus far the China-North Korea question has always been posed in terms of how China can be got to use it’s supposed leverage to meet Western objectives. Maybe the real question is how the West and regional actors can help Beijing assert greater control over the regime. Always assuming, that is, that you give credibility to China’s promises on eventual reunification.

Comments

[Alex]

he only country with the available capital to divert to that is China. Or at any rate, it's the only country that has demonstrated a real willingness to divert it.

Well, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. None of them are what you'd call poor, and they're all sitting on huge Bretton Woods II official forex reserves, and all have fairly clear interests in investing there.

[Cian]

There's probably also a lot of private money in the region that would also be very interested in setting up factories there. Compliant work force, low expectations, well located. For a poor country they probably have reasonable educational levels as well.

[jamie]

Yeah, but it goes beyond factories: pretty much everything would have to be rebuilt before the labour could be utilised effectively.

Korean chaebol were encouraged to set up operations there under the sunshine policy and a lot did, but not with conspicuous enthusiasm. Also, when Lee Yung Bak recently proposed a solidarity tax against the eventual costs of reunification, his ratings fell away quite considerably. A general rebuilding effort in NK would have to be state led, which means that the states concerned would have to have backing from their respective publics to push businesses beyond cherry picking, and I don't see that level of enthusiasm.

On the other hand China has got a very large state sector which it can force to act for reasons of state, as well as large amounts of money and greater local knowledge (not that this seems to be doing Beijing much good now). And of course, electorates are not a factor.

I think if China could present a scenario where it can plausibly take the NK problem off everybody's hands while setting up a structure that welcomes foreign capital then that would be a more than acceptable solution. So the question then becomes how you help them get there.

North Korean music education is supposed to be excellent, I read somewhere. They've also got this knack of getting hungry children to successfully perform bizarre gymnastics.

[ajay]

North Korean music education is supposed to be excellent, I read somewhere. They've also got this knack of getting hungry children to successfully perform bizarre gymnastics.

After regime change, North Korea would own the West End and Broadway.

The problem with getting in capital from Japan and Taiwan would be that it would be coming from Japan and Taiwan. China and South Korea might be the only foreign sources that wouldn't be regarded with fear and hatred by the (apparently incredibly xenophobic) NK population.

But the question for China is: does the maths make sense? If you're a Chinese planner, what has to happen for you to put $200 million into building a new assembly line in North Korea rather than in, say, the Far West?

[ajay]

...the link between West End musicals and authoritarian regimes just keeps coming up, doesn't it?

[Richard J]

And modern operas too:- Nixon in China, the ADF Ghadaffi one, the list could go on. Perhaps.

[ajay]

Well, the difference is that people (often quite liberal people) write modern operas about authoritarian regimes. (Actually, they always did write operas about authoritarian regimes. Tosca, Turandot, The Magic Flute, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Fidelio, Nabucco, Aida, and so on.)
But the sort of people who produce West End musicals are actually sympathetic with authoritarian regimes. See previous discussion about the role of Evita! in the British coup plot of the 1960s.

[ajay]

My rant on the deep links between the couture industry and the Fascist movement may follow soon, if you're unlucky.

[jamie]

Also perfumes and associated frippery; also champagne. I've always been fascinated by the way the whole French luxury goods industry seemed to go over to the far right in the interwar years.

[skidmarx]

"it’s supposed leverage"
Superfluous apostrophe alert.

[Richard J]

I can't honestly think what the attraction of fascist politics is to an explicitly exclusionary and elitist sect of people with a cult of bodily perfection.

[ajay]

I've always been fascinated by the way the whole French luxury goods industry seemed to go over to the far right in the interwar years.

There have now been two Coco Chanel biopics, and both have AFAIK completely managed to avoid the whole "worked as a Nazi spy while shacked up with an SS officer, and had her close friend and colleague Vera Lombardi arrested by the Gestapo" issue. Which you'd have thought would have come up.

[ejh]

Actually, they always did write operas about authoritarian regimes. Tosca, Turandot, The Magic Flute, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Fidelio, Nabucco, Aida, and so on.)

They might have been a litle pushed for alternative kinds of regime to write about, at the time.

[dsquared]

"The Barber of Iceland".

[ajay]

ejh: true, of course. Though I think you could have written about a monarchy that wasn't very authoritarian, or at least not very oppressive: there's no authoritarianism in, say, "The Barber of Seville" or "The Marriage of Figaro" or "Lucia di Lammermoor" or "Otello" or "La fanciulla del West" or "Madame Butterfly" or "Don Giovanni". And at least when they wrote about authoritarianism they were against it, vide all the examples I listed, and contra Evita!.