If China, through unjustly battered and criticized by US-led Asian coalition, were to be disturbingly pushed to move from where they stand now to a compromised thereby favorable to US position onto the question of Korean peninsula, it seems there won’t be any better future for the region. Instead there will surely be a constant gloomy sign of war, a nuclear war in the region and, of course, in the world as well.
On Dec. 8, Japan’s Sankei reports US proposed “a five-party framework to replace the stalled Six-Party Talks mechanism.” This is exactly the case what US favors on Korea question. There is no doubt this so-called “five party” mechanism is America’s another “divide and conquer” strategy. The US simply wants to push China to join them to complete its long-awaited goal to bring about “North Korea’s collapse.”
As well-publicized, since the March Cheonan incident, US, Japan and South Korea have uniformly pressured China to join them to denounce, thereby demonize and eventually suffocate DPRK (North Korea) until its collapse. Undoubtedly the “regime change” in North Korea has been the sole goal of US-led coalition, since it wasn’t able to achieve its Northeast Asian strategic goal from their failed 1950-53 War.
Now the self-righteous US-led Asian coalition publicly calls for a “regime change” in Pyongyang. In the past, however, they’d done it somewhat covertly, though it was a well-known Washington’s hidden agenda for a longtime. With the Cheonan sinking incident in which they’ve arbitrarily and unilaterally accused the North, however, they’ve immediately resumed to sing their outdated old song “North Korea’s collapse.”
For example, according to Global Times’ Dec. 8th article (“Washington, allies urge more pressure on North Korea”), “the US and its Asian allies condemned North Korea’s ‘provocative behavior’ and urged Beijing to pressure Pyongyang to fulfill its commitments and abandon nuclear aspirations.” This is a typical pretext US has often employed to accomplish its strategic goals around the globe. Its goal this time in Korean peninsula is the collapse of Pyongyang.
It’s now a well-recognized fact in China-US relations that America’s goal to bring about regime change in the northern part of Korean peninsula is first and foremost to extend America’s military presence up to the Korea’s northern most borderline. The Yalu and Tumen rivers are the peaceful, easy-to-cross and no-fence borderline China has shared with its traditional socialist neighbor, DPRK for over 60 years now.
If US’s Korea strategy were to be achieved, it’s also a well-known fact that America’s next immediate strategic target is China which has been continuously encircled by US military bases. This China strategy since the collapse of Soviet Union in early 1990s is also intertwined together with its Eurasian strategy in which America has attempted to do everything possible to keep China and Russia divided from each other (Zbignew Brzezinski called them “two barbarians” in his 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”).
As US tried to sow seeds of division between China and Russia for more than a half century, it also has repeatedly done so between China and DPRK. This was the core reason why US had to employ so-called “North Korean Nuclear Issue” precisely as its classic “divide and conquer” strategy. However, after all, US failed in both strategies. Many argued this is one of the main reasons why US is so much in a hurry.
A couple of more questions people should ask in regard to the US’s and its allies’ habitually schizophrenic charges of North Korea of its “provocative behavior” are: who’s been really the worst provocateur not only in Korean peninsula but also around the globe? In modern history, who’s most fitting to the historical category of wielding “provocative behavior”? We don’t even have to go back to the 500 years of genocidal history of Native American people since 1492.
Since the WW II in 1945, who’s been most fitting to the issue of “[not] fulfilling commitments and [refuse to] abandon [thousands of] nuclear [weapons]”? Who’s the one has most violated international laws, rules, and regulations? Who’s the one often invaded other sovereign nations around the globe? I don’t think it is North Korea! It’s neither Cuba nor Iran! Instead is it not the US and Israel by far the worst?
The world knows very well the apparent answers to those self-evident questions. However, in the past, there was no big enough powers to justly deal with the “only global superpower.” None was able to make the latter’s terrible wrongdoings stopped or corrected. Unfortunately the world still is very much captive to or not fully free from the self-proclaimed “21st Century Empire’s” arbitrariness, arrogance and their culture of hypocrisy.
So the following questions in regard to the Korea crisis thereby the Northeast Asian regional crisis still linger amongst us: Why did US this time resume its war crisis strategy? In what background has US made such hasty thereby failed warmongering attempts such as the still very much contested Cheonan incident? What has made or forced the US so much rush into such as a confrontational thereby dangerous approach to the 60 years old question of its “Two Korea Policy”?
In recent years, particularly after the 2008 collapse of once-mighty American financial system, a number of US scholars have questioned about if “American power in decline.” As most recent as this week, Alfred W. McCoy published his quite thought-provoking article, “The Decline and Fall of American Empire.” The above-listed why and what questions can be amply answered from the core issue, i.e., American power in decline.
The Korea question has become a global and geopolitical barometer if China seemingly as the only deterrent power to the once sole global superpower who is in helpless decline can become the hope to keep and maintain peace and stability in Korea peninsula, Northeast Asia region, and the whole world. Otherwise the world which has been subjugated to the colonial rules of the Western powers for several centuries and to the arrogant imperial dominance of America’s unilateral power till this very day may not have a bright future!
Dr. Kiyul Chung who is Adjunct Professor at School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University is Editor-in-chief for the 4th Media.