[Mb-civic] China's Moment - Charles Krauthammer - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

China's Moment

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 23, 2005; Page A23

In September 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt brokered the Treaty of 
Portsmouth (New Hampshire), which settled the Russo-Japanese War. 
Settling an extra-hemispheric dispute between foreign powers marked the 
emergence of the United States, an economic and demographic dynamo, as a 
world power and serious actor on the international stage.

Exactly 100 years later, a statement of principles has been issued from 
Beijing on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program. If it holds -- the 
"if" is very large -- it will mark China's emergence from an economic 
and demographic dynamo to a major actor on the world stage, and serious 
rival to American dominance in the Pacific.

Why is the Beijing agreement different from the worthless "Agreed 
Framework" Bill Clinton signed in 1994 and North Korea violated (we now 
know) from the very first day? That agreement was bilateral. This one is 
six-party, but the major player is China.

China conspicuously made itself the locus of the conference and its 
host. Its vice foreign minister declared that "North Korea committed to 
abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and 
returning at an early date to a nuclear nonproliferation treaty." If 
China can succeed where the United States failed miserably in solving 
the knottiest problem in the Pacific, China will have emerged. That 
means a lot for China. It has a large stake in this agreement.

Moreover, China controls 30 percent of the food and at least 70 percent 
of the fuel going into North Korea. That is leverage. The question is 
why China has decided to use it now.

Until now China had been content to allow North Korea to putter along 
with its threats, bluster, promises and violations. This served a useful 
purpose for China in that it was a distraction to the United States, a 
thorn in its side. Nor were the Chinese in a particular mood to 
jeopardize the stability of a useful client state.

If this new agreement bears fruit, it will be because China has 
recalculated its interests, by first deciding that if these negotiations 
go nowhere and North Korea remains nuclear, it is only a matter of time 
before Japan goes nuclear, too. A nuclear Japan is China's ultimate 
nightmare.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/22/AR2005092202257.html?nav=hcmodule
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