Left Flank

Mind you, here's a slightly more polite version of the story about which my wife lectured me this morning:

In a joint press conference after the summit at the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday afternoon, Hu said the two countries «agreed to make a joint four-point effort to develop a partnership of strategic cooperation."

The four points are strengthening bilateral communication and build a dialogue channel for foreign strategies; strengthening reciprocal cooperation on telecommunications and nuclear power generation and conduct active research on a Korea-Chinese free trade agreement; expanding personnel, cultural and youth exchanges; and promoting close cooperation on international issues, including peace and stability in Northeast Asia, climate change and reform of the UN.

(…)

«An old saying in Korea says, 'If a rooster crows in Qingdao early in the morning, you can hear the cackling in Incheon.'

Obviously, my wife didn't vote for Lee Myung-bak. Then again, she didn't vote for Roh Moo-hyun, either. I'm not certain how she ever votes, every single election, including parliamentary by-elections, but it might be for me. I'm fairly certain she spoils ballots, and I only hope she doesn't use profanity.

Outside the expat echo chamber and the netizen asylum, there lies the majority of really pìššëd-off, responsible South Koreans, like my in-laws. The historical subtleties of international politics seems like nothing more than a ever-recurring cyclical anal penetration. My parents vote GNP faithfully, and I know this because I once went to a GNP auxiliary rally where my wife and I were the only lucid persons younger than 40. But, my wife and her friends, and my siblings are in a quandary. Let me put it bluntly as I here it. The conservative GNP is "šhìt", old crooks who love Japan and China. The progressive UNDP (or whatever they want to call themselves now) are "morons", made up of people whose only virtue is their inability to steal. They also love the North. There's no one to vote for! We're screwed! The world sucks!

Beijing needs shepherding into its leadership position in East Asia, and democratic Japan and South Korea are the best bets for the job. But, I don't know how long my wife and friends' patience will last.

Beijing's senior leadership continues to learn, on the job.

While the causes of individual building failures remain unclear, such complaints underscore widespread concerns about the quality of much of China's infrastructure amid an unparalleled but only patchily supervised national building surge. The criticism is also a potent reminder of the political risks that natural disasters – with their merciless exposure of administrative or societal failings – can pose even to rulers as firmly rooted as China's Communist party.

So far Beijing leaders have appeared well prepared to minimise such risks. Hu Jintao, China's president, and Wen Jiabao, the premier, reacted decisively and very publicly within hours of the quake on Monday. And state-controlled media have kept Mr Wen centre-stage in their coverage from the earthquake zone ever since.

«This is clearly a team that realises they cannot muck around on disaster relief,» says David Zweig, director of the Centre on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Mr Wen's calls for local officials to redouble relief efforts have bolstered his man-of-the-people image and attracted online praise for the government, largely drowning out accusations of shoddy school construction and anger that officials failed to forecast the quake.

Victor Shih reports also on "...a quake and disaster relief work headquarters with Comrade Wen Jiabao as the head and Comrades Li Keqiang and Hui Liangyu as the deputy heads to take full charge of the current quake and disaster relief work."

I'm still decelerating from a guest lecture by Johan Galtung, "Peace in the Global Era and Perspectives of the Unification on the Korean Peninsula", I attended this afternoon at Dong-A University. As usual I forgot my camera, because I honestly thought the panel discussion would be an examination of Galtung's work by South Korean professors applied to the North Korean problem, not a guest lecture. OK, he's not Beckham, but now I can but a face to articles I have read in IR grad classes. And, his treatment of the North Korean problem was inspiring.

Galtung deviated from the script immediately. Kudos to the Dong-A professor who suddenly was forced into the role of translator. The younger South Korean and Galtung exchanged some tense words, and Galtung often had to repeat for him, but the man did an admirable job. Well, his boss, the dean, who is "friends" with Galtung, was sitting right there at the table, too. But, that was nothing compared to the fireworks later, when another professor lit into Galtung for his arguments. The dean had to wave him off! More later...

After a late start (15 minutes), and the dean's fulsome praise (which bordered on lavish), Galtung quickly laid out his five-point lecture. He began with his distinction between negative and positive peace, and applied it the Korean peninsula. The goal of resolving the Korean armistice precedes political unification. After characterizing the North Korean state as "fundamentalist Confucian", Galtung then argued that unification only necessitated the free flow of people, goods and services, and information and ideas between the two Korean states, not the dissolution of ROK and DPRK into a single Korean state. Galtung buttressed this point by that of three other scenarios, conquest, collapse, or peaceful dissolution, the first two were violent, and the last has never occurred in human history. Galtung termed this "national reconciliation without the unification of two states". Galtung subsequently considered confederation as a starting political point, but unnecessary.

Topically, Galtung predicted that DPRK, following Hu Jintao's lead in this 17th Party Congress address would adopt Chinese economic reforms, and experience double-digit economic growth in the next ten years. The stumbling point before now was the Chinese emphasis on "jungle capitalism" and the Juche emphasis on distribution. But with Hu's embrace of distribution, Kim Jong-il can now embrace the PRC model. So, let's put a marker on that prediction.

Also, Galtung examined the Six-Party dynamics, as the historical result of a century's worth of diplomacy beginning with the Taft-Katsura Agreement of 1905. With DPRK and PRC on one side, and Japan and US on the other, ROK has vacillated between the two sides. Under Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, Seoul favored the DPRK-PRC axis, but Lee Myung-bak looks fit to swing back to the Japan-US side. Galtung predicted this latest swing would fail, and ROK would swing back again in the future. But, as an honest broker between the US and DPRK, ROK can take a step toward positive peace. Galtung criticized the decision not to award both Kim Jong-il and Kim Dae-jung the Nobel Peace Prize for the June, 2000 Summit. For Galtung, ROK has to act a third-party mediator, or escrow account, as he used for an example, between DPRK and US.

The US wants denuclearization; DPRK wants normalization. Both states should give the instruments of both processes to Seoul, after which Seoul can decide to verify both simultaneously. Or, another organization, such as the UN Security Council (minus the US), the IAEA, or the remaining four parties in the Six-Party process can also be alternative mediators. Galtung emphasized, though, that ROK's role was insignificant in the regional and global contest between DPRK and US, if it did not operate even-handedly between DPRK and US. Galtung remained hopeful, that, if ROK and DPRK can become diplomatic equals, the human rights situation will improve, but that the US, and those still desiring collapse or conquest, are "arrogant". "Peace is a relation," Galtung stated.

It was during the Q&A, that Professor X launched into an emotional tirade (in English) about North Korean human rights abuses. He also correctly lectured about the persecution of religious denominations in the DPRK, including the Confucian religion Galtung had argued typified the North Korean state. Although I agreed, this man was rude. The dean prompted him to repeat his comments in Korean for the audience, but then had to quiet the man repeatedly afterwards. Galtung repeated his argument and agreed with the professor, that the North Korean regime is "terrible". At this point, he emphasized again, that peace is relational.

I asked about the South African and Libyan cases as models for denuclearization, which Galtung acknowledged as examples of successes. I also argued that political unification is impossible geopolitically on a peninsula. Here Galtung emphasized, that "unification is not important", but the free flow of people and goods is. He also advocated an "East Asian Community", to integrate the Korean peninsula into a regional and global framework.

Galtung's emphasis on reconciliation without unification is a thousand times more agreeable to me than an internecine conflict over how to unifiy the peninsula into one state. The tension in the auditorium, full of students, who honestly were more concerned with verifying their attendance than listening, rose and hit newer levels every time Galtung slighted ROK, or dissed unification. I don't believe these students knew who the man was, or respected his career. I think the only South Korean who admired him was the dean. Unfortunately, whatever Galtung argued was binned as another foreigners' lack of appreciation for the present situation, not as an application of Galtung's peace studies to a current crisis. As the one professor demonstrated, engaging with arguments dispassionately might be utopian in an emotionally-charged political situation where even students feel Koreans own the debate.

Jamestown Foundation calls it a "new starting point" for PRC and ROK, with diplomats shuttling already between PRC President Hu Jintao, ROK President-elect Lee Myung-bak, and Kim Jong-il. Scott Snyder lays out future bilateral relations as a contest between Seoul's efforts to keep business and trade in proportion and Beijing's efforts to "cast its shadow" over the Lee administration's relations with DPRK and Japan. But, Lee appears determined to privilege security relations with Washington and Tokyo at the expense of Beijing.

Lee's willingness to speak publicly about North Korean human rights shortcomings suggests that Lee is less likely to go out of his way to avoid offending North Korea's leaders—and for that matter raise themes that his Chinese counterpart may not find helpful. For instance, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman was pressed to respond to Lee's comments on North Korean human rights in a press conference the day after Lee Myung-bak's election. Another sensitive factor that may influence the pace and direction of developments in inter-Korean relations is that Lee's Grand National Party has never participated in inter-Korean dialogue activities organized by previous South Korean governments and was even excluded from some «non-governmental» exchanges by the North, so the official inter-Korean relationship itself will be under new management. These factors suggest the possibility that a downturn in inter-Korean relations might sidetrack progress in implementing the Six-Party Agreements, resulting in renewed tensions and renewed pressure on China to exert pressure on North Korea. Based on these concerns, China has pursued an intensive dialogue in an apparent effort to keep the new South Korean president from making a rapid shift away from the current track of engagement efforts with North Korea.

Secondly, Lee Myung-bak has clearly indicated that his top priority in foreign policy is to improve strategic relations with the United States, while efforts to improve Sino-South Korean relations will focus primarily on upgrading economic cooperation. Although Chinese Party School specialist Zhang Liangui argues that «the development of economic ties is bound to bring closer Sino-ROK political, cultural, and even military exchanges and cooperation,» Lee's top priority remains the reinvigoration of U.S.-ROK security ties (Shanghai Dongfang Zaobao, December 20, 2007).

Third, Lee Myung-bak's visible efforts to improve relations with Japan have caught Chinese attention, especially since an improved South Korea-Japan relationship may lead to strengthened trilateral coordination among the United States, Japan and South Korea (South China Morning Post, January 30). Although this sort of coordination was promoted in the late 1990s as a response to ongoing concerns about North Korea, the resurgence of bilateral textbook, territorial, and historical and political disputes between South Korea and Japan made continuation of such trilateral coordination both unstable and perhaps unsustainable. Now that the Beijing-led Six-Party Talks have been established, Chinese analysts may consider renewed U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral coordination efforts as incompatible with those talks since it may be perceived by North Korea as threatening. Such security coordination also invites concerns in China that it might be used to encircle China or to strengthen coordination in response to any potential cross-Strait crisis. Chinese scholars have unofficially discouraged South Korean counterparts from renewing such coordination even though a purely North Korea-focused precedent exists from the late 1990s. South Korea's outgoing Foreign Minister Song Min-soon has also warned that re-establishment of trilateral policy coordination might have unanticipated negative effects.

Lee's emphasis on human rights is both convenient and well-received, although, until the Roh administration is sent packing, incidents like on February 8 are still likely to be common.

South Korea returned a group of North Koreans to the communist nation after they strayed into southern waters on fishing boats earlier this month, the Defense Ministry said Saturday.

The 22 people drifted into the South off the divided peninsula's west coast in two motorless boats Feb. 8 and were repatriated later in the day because they wanted to go home, the ministry said in a statement, released amid media speculation the North Koreans attempted to defect.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported the weather on Feb. 8 was not bad enough for the boats to stray, suggesting the group intended to defect to the South and were returned against their wishes.

The report also noted the government did not make any public statements about the incident at the time, even though it normally does so.

Obviously, I'm elated about the prospects of improved trilateral relations between Japan, ROK, and US, especially since Six-Party negotiations offer scant hope for improvement in this year.

I should be grateful I didn't have to wait in frigid, socked in stations waiting for a train, as millions of Chinese people had to endure during their one annual opportunity over the Lunar New Year holiday to see far-flung relatives. Were all the delays merely the result of the snowstorms, an "act of God"?

For a government that bases its claim to legitimacy on its competence and ability to guarantee the supply of basic necessities, all of this might seem threatening. Yet like many others, Mr Liu blames what he calls «the worst weather in decades», rather than the authorities.

Not everyone is happy to leave it at that. The disgruntled probably include the millions still suffering from shortages of power and water, and those who have reluctantly heeded the government's call to scrap their cherished holiday visit home.

Government leaders have dispatched army and police forces to keep order and work crews to get things moving again. They have also gone out of their way to express concern and, in the familiar ringing idiom of martial mass-mobilisation propaganda, show they have taken charge. Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, visited stations in three provinces, offering sympathy and vague apologies for unspecified failures. President Hu Jintao went down a coalmine to inspire miners to step up their output. On February 2nd Wu Yi, a deputy prime minister, popped up at Nanchang station, urging local officials to «be fully aware of the arduousness and gravity of the snow-havoc battle».

According to Fang Xiu'an, of the China Coal Transport and Distribution Association, which handles marketing for coal producers, the authorities deserve high marks for responding to the crisis. They worked quickly to increase coal production, to give deliveries of coal priority over other cargoes, and to start fixing transport and power disruptions.

But he also faults bureaucrats in the coal and power industries. Power plants that normally stock 18-20 days' worth of coal had in some cases run their reserves down to as little as three days' worth. Planners, says Mr Fang, should have been more alert to warning signs that these dangerously low stockpiles made China vulnerable. The causes of the supply crunch are clear enough. Since 2005 the government has ordered thousands of unsafe and poorly managed coalmines to shut down, reducing production. Lower output, together with unusually cold weather, forced up prices. From December to January, the price of premium coal rose by 13%, from 575 yuan a tonne to 650 yuan. But electricity prices are fixed, and, unable to pass on costs, power producers had been waiting for seasonal price cuts in March before stocking up.

Equally clear is the reasoning behind these policies. Rising inflation has unnerved citizens and officials alike, and power-price controls are one way to stem it. Lax mining standards, meanwhile, have led to a gruesome string of coalmine accidents and a scandalous yearly toll of thousands of dead miners. The government has justifiably been under pressure to act.

At least, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao acted like leaders, visiting coal mines and angry travellers. But, Again, there is a very real policy failure these leaders need to tackle.

Despite their professions of concern, however, Mr Wen and Mr Hu have done little in concrete policy terms to make them count. And there are some ways in which policy failures have indeed exacerbated the weather-induced agony. The first is the inadequacy of disaster-response mechanisms, and the poor co-ordination between the various government departments involved. Second is the refusal to tackle a basic structural problem: that China is a country with hundreds of millions of migrant workers, most of whom are separated from their families, who all take their holidays at exactly the same time. A reform to holiday entitlements is belatedly under way. Residency rules that force families apart also need reviewing.

Thirdly, at least one aspect of the latest crisis was both foreseeable and in part a direct result of government policy: the electricity shortages, which afflicted tens of millions and worsened the transport bottlenecks. A flawed reform had freed fuel prices but left power-producers unable to pass on the rising cost of coal to consumers, because electricity prices are fixed. Many producers responded by letting their stocks fall to dangerously low levels, in the hope prices would fall when the weather warms up in the spring.

Gordon G. Chang offers the New Year snowstorms as another reason the PRC needs a "…more open economy." Before that, China needs two politicians who can do better than just make house calls.

Do you wanna bet France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and China's Hu Jintao are discussing the intricacies of currency revaluation and consumer protection, or how to crush protests make profits?

Meanwhile, back in gay Paris...

What seems more incongruous, the architectura of the 17th Communist Party Congress hall and the modern skyline and stockmarket, or Hu Jintao's calls for reform and that Chinese salesman's opinion?

Even more disappointing is a return to consensus, instead of elections. And, censorship never seems to go out of fashion, covering up yet more socio-economic divisions within the country.

Excellent commentary is available at Elite Chinese Politics and Political Economy.