Jonathan D. Pollack

Kim Jong-il's Clenched Fist

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is yet again on the U.S. policy radar screen. Despite President Barack Obama’s declared intention to ‘‘extend a hand’’ to adversaries who would unclench their fist, Kim Jong-il decided to challenge rather than reciprocate. In a series of orchestrated, disproportionate actions justified as retaliation for the United Nations Security Council’s condemnation of an attempted satellite launch in early April 2009, North Korea walked away from every denuclearization measure painfully and incompletely negotiated during the Bush administration’s second term in office. On April 13, 2009, only hours after a non-binding Security Council presidential statement was issued, the DPRK described the statement as ‘‘an unbearable insult to our people and a criminal act never to be tolerated,’’ asserted that it would never return to the Six-Party Talks, and that it would ‘‘boost its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way.’’ Pyongyang declared that it would convert its entire inventory of plutonium into weapons, resume operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, and test intercontinental ballistic missiles. It again expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as well as U.S. personnel facilitating the disablement process at the reactor and associated facilities. The North also announced that it would accelerate pursuit of an enriched uranium capability, a program whose existence it had long denied. North Korea’s second nuclear test on May 25, 2009 was the centerpiece of its policy retrogression. According to preliminary U.S. estimates, the test had an explosive yield appreciably greater than the first nuclear test of October 2006. Though the explosion did not constitute definitive evidence of a deliverable

China's Taiwan Strategy: A Point of No Return?

After more than fifteen years of military quiescence and incremental accommodation, the China-Taiwan relationship is once again seriously perturbed. In the view of numerous observers, Chinas renewed military exercises of 1995 and 1996 are the precursor of a far larger political-military confrontation, including the prospect of direct military hostilities between the mainland and Taiwan. The implications ? for the internal politics and economic development of China and Taiwan, for Taiwans ties with the United States, for the future of Sino-American relations, and for longer-term stability and security in the West Pacific ? could prove lasting and profound. With the stakes so high, understanding the meaning and potential consequences of recent events becomes essential. In the lead contribution to this symposium, Andrew Nathan presents a foreboding assessment. In Nathans view, Chinas military exercises in and near the Taiwan Strait are the opening salvos in a campaign to compel Taiwans leaders to move irrevocably toward accommodation with Beijing, thereby enabling the CCP to achieve its long-sought domination over the island. Although Nathan does not assert that this domination must extend to direct physical control, this may be a distinction without a difference. Nathan argues that the Chinese leadership is no longer prepared to tolerate the status quo and that, given democratization on Taiwan, the CCP does not have any realistic option to let matters rest. In his assessment, the leaders in Beijing will now settle for nothing less than unequivocal control (namely, veto power) over Taipeis future foreign policy actions and directions, lest Taiwan at a future date align with an external power, thereby again serving as a base from which foreign forces could threaten China. All of Chinas actions, Nathan contends, are subordinated to this central reactive goal. There is much to commend in Nathans analysis. It is vigorously argued and captures some of the principal views put forward by strategic and foreign policy circles in Beijing. Its strength, however, is also its weakness. In the effort to characterize the essence of Chinese strategy, Nathan pays little heed to the more complex policy dynamics at work in all three corners of the Beijing-Taipei-Washington triangle. Amidst the noise and emotion expended over the past year, especially by officials in Beijing who feel humiliated by

The major powers and the two Koreas: an uneasy transition

Abstract The potential for major change on the Korean peninsula has seldom seemed greater than at present. Barring a severe peninsular or regional crisis, Americas preoccupations with military conflicts in the Greater Middle East and itsown internal economic upheaval—both taking place amidst the transition to a new presidency—are likely to crowd out U.S. attention to Northeast Asia. The United States and other powers have substantial incentives to maintain and (if possible) to enhance peninsular stability, but there is little clarity on how to achieve such stability, given the uncertainties related to the political leadership in North Korea, the problematic prospects for nuclear diplomacy, policy immobilism in South Korea, weak leadership and stark political divisions in Japan, and China and Russia both seeking to enhance their regional influence. The Six-Party Talks best capture this indeterminacy, enabling initial but very incomplete steps toward denuclearization in North Korea, without a shared vision...

The United States and Asia in 1995: The Case of the Missing President

The past year was decidedly inauspicious for U.S. policy in Asia. Despite renewed efforts to define a larger regional strategy, the Clinton administration was repeatedly buffeted by major controversies and setbacks. Some of the administrations difficulties were not foreseeable. In September the arrest of three American servicemen for involvement in the brutal rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl provoked widespread discontent within Japan over the terms of the U.S. military presence, even if few Japanese critics were prepared to question the broader relevance of the U.S.Japan alliance. But other worrisome developments-in particular, a serious deterioration in the U.S.-China relationship-seemed attributable in significant measure to major weaknesses in the U.S. policy-making machinery, beginning with a minimally engaged American president. A splintered decision-making process driven primarily by issues of the moment; the absence of sustained high level attention to Asia on the part of the president and his senior foreign policy advisers; and President Clintons preoccupation with U.S. domestic politics (accentuated further by the midterm election of Republican majorities in both houses of Congress) all stymied development of a coherent foreign policy strategy for Asia. Although there were some important accomplishments-in particular, the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Vietnam-the overall record seemed very mixed, and elicited growing concerns within the region about the future prospects for U.S. leadership, especially with the approach of another presidential election campaign.

The Implications of Sino-American Normalization

C h i n a in early 1979 is poised on the edge of a new political era. Nearly three decades after the formal establishment of the People’s Republic, full diplomatic relations with the United States have finally been achieved. A Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Japan, signed in October 1978, has consummated an equally historic process of rapprochement, with Tokyo prepared for the first time to align with one of the principal disputants in the Sino-Soviet conflict, at obvious cost for its relations with the other. In a broad range of international initiatives, China’s leadership is now pursuing concrete, long-term ties to the West and to Japan in foreign trade, purchases of advanced technology (both military and civilian), and diplomatic measures aimed at countering Soviet political and military power. Party-to-party relations with Albania and Vietnam, both close Chinese allies in the past, have been vituperatively severed, along with all economic and military agreements. Peking’s sudden military assault into Vietnam’s northernmost provinces in February, 1979, furnishes even more potent and revealing evidence of the magnitude of the departure from past policies. As old allies have been discarded and even invaded, China has made its peace with still older antagonists. Thus, partyto-party ties with Yugoslavia, scorned for nearly two decades as the principal source of modern revisionism, have been fully restored, with President Tito and Hua Kuo-feng, China’s new Party Chairman, exchanging highly publicized visits. Finally, many of these changes have diminished China’s long identification with and focus upon the third world. With a speed and apparent finality that few observers would have thought possible, the People’s Republic’s leadership seems determined to pursue an international course in the coming decade that at best bears only partial resemblance to the professed ideals of the past. Changes underway in China’s domestic politics and economics since the death of Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung in September 1976 hold even more potential significance. While comparisons to Soviet politics following the death of Stalin are inevitable and perhaps somewhat facile, they are not wholly inapt. A remarkable range of political, economic, and institutional initiatives, launched under the aegis and active guidance of Party Vice Chairman Teng Hsiao-p’ing, have progressed farther and faster than most ob-

The United States and Asia in 1996: Under Renovation, but Open for Business

U. S.-Asian relations ranged the gamut of possibilities in 1996. A year that began with portents of armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait and the subsequent deployment of two American aircraft carriers to the Taiwan area during March ended with Chinas defense minister traveling to the United States for high-level policy discussions, visits to U.S. military bases, and a meeting with President Clinton. U.S.-Japanese relations, frayed during the fall of 1995 by a widely publicized rape incident on Okinawa involving three American Marines and the abrupt cancellation of a presidential visit to a regional economic summit, recovered their balance with both leaderships opting to solidify political and security ties. The Clinton administration, widely faulted for inattentiveness and a lack of clarity in its Asia policy for much of the presidents first term in office, registered notable gains in alliance relations and multilateral economic ties, with the accomplishments ratified during two presidential visits to the region in the space of seven months. By years end, the administration had achieved a measure of closure in its Asian policy priorities. Long-standing bilateral alliances were reaffirmed and reinvigorated, with multilateral diplomacy in a subsidiary if somewhat enhanced role; democratization and human rights were generally subordinated to commercial opportunity and political necessity; and ties with China were much more vigorously pursued despite a wide range of policy differences and the absence of close personal relations between senior leaders. After three years of contention and frequent indecision atop the administration, pragmatic if less grandiose objectives for U.S. policy were increasingly the norm,

China's role in Pacific Basin security

Abstract : Topics include: Assessing Chinas Strategic Role; China and the Asian Communist States; and China and the Pacific Basin.