Tag: China
It takes a region
The Pickering/Brahimi report on negotiating an end to the war in Afghanistan is on less than firm ground in claiming that its publication happens to coincide with the perfect moment to launch negotiations to end the insurgency in Afghanistan (see my previous post), but its discussion of the regional interests in Afghanistan is better framed. They do not limit themselves to Pakistan, as so many reports seem inclined to do, but look farther to Iran, India, China and Russia.
Still, they leave me with a lot of question marks. They don’t deal with Pakistan’s ISI, which seems rather more wedded to the Taliban than the rest of the Pakistani government. In fact, they treat “Pakistan” as a unified actor, which is certainly not the way it has acted in the past, and I don’t know many analysts who expect it to act that way in the future.
They cite Iran’s interests in controlling drugs, protecting Shia, preventing the Taliban from returning to power and maintaining influence in Herat. But they don’t deal with Tehran’s apparent willingness to provide some military support to Taliban insurgents inside Afghanistan.
The report counts China as a possible influence in the right direction on Pakistan. Beijing might certainly wish it so, as Afghanistan’s minerals are appetizingly close by. But I wonder whether the Pakistan that would have to be influenced is all that interested in what the Chinese have to say on Afghanistan. Again there is that unified actor question.
The treatment of “Central Asian states,” (aka the Stans, I think) and Russia is rather cursory, with a reference to their interests in a stable Afghanistan, their worries about U.S. presence and the possibility of jihadis breaching their borders. It seems to me that they have been surprisingly non-meddling, even helpful. How do we account for that, and is there something more they can do?
The discussion of how the proposed international “facilitator” would deal with the various layers of neighborly and other international interest is well done. The idea would be a series of bilateral consultations, to precede any multilateral meeting (one coming up in Istanbul).
The suggestion that international peacekeepers may be needed post-settlement I find mind-stretching. It’s a bit difficult to imagine Afghanistan safe for peacekeepers, Muslim or not, rather than peace enforcers. But of course that is just the point: if there is a broad political settlement, most of the insurgency would presumably go away.
All of this may be wishful thinking. But it is more realistic wishful thinking–maybe even “visionary” thinking–than believing we are going to be able to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014 without a negotiated political settlement.
I have feared the terms of that settlement inside Afghanistan for human rights, in particular for women. I’ve too often sat in State Department meetings where assistant secretaries promised not to sell out human rights, only to discover a week later that is precisely what was done. And what real leverage do we have over how women are treated in a Helmand governed by Taliban? The best of intentions somehow go astray when faced with the need for a power-sharing agreement with people who have been violating human rights for years, if not decades. That conflict of interests and values, again.
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Hu is the better alternative
Michael J. Green in the National Interest has an excellent piece on communique diplomacy with China, but it leaves open the difficult question of the longer-term relationship between Washington and Beijing. While this question is being asked at Brookings and elsewhere, answers seem to be lacking. Clean energy technologies are far too weak a reed to support a long-term U.S./China relationship. While some argue that what is needed is to implement what has already been agreed, that too seems a formula less robust than what is needed.
The basic problem lies in diverging values. This is not just a matter of human rights, but it is also a matter of human rights. First ducking the question and then sounding forthcoming yesterday, President Hu Jintao said China “recognizes and also respects the universality of human rights” and acknowledged that “a lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights.” This answer that will cause Hu more trouble in Beijing than in Washington. But expert analysts are having a hard time interpreting what it means, and even whether it is boiler plate or something new. And for the Chinese, human rights include economic and social rights, not just political ones. Where we hear “freedom of expression” they may mean “right to health.”
My own inclination, but I admit it is not a particularly well-informed one, is to think that yesterday’s visit did open some possibilities for improved longer-term relations with China, if only because the two leaders seemed on the same wavelength and free to express their agreements and disagreements clearly and comfortably. Above all, they seemed to agree that the kinds of misunderstandings that plagued the bilateral relationship in 2010 should not be repeated in 2011 and beyond. Tone matters in diplomacy, especially with the Chinese, and yesterday’s tones were harmonious (an important value in Beijing).
The tone of mutual respect hides however a fundamental asymetry. Hu Jintao is the leader of a one-party system. President Obama is not everyone’s favorite in the U.S.–I am getting a lot of Tea Party tweets these days about defeating him at the next elections–but precisely because he won office in a tough political competition he has a kind of democratic legitimacy that Hu Jintao lacks. In fact, democracy of the sort we would recognize as such is still a great threat in China, because it calls into question the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power.
What difference does this make? A great deal, it seems to me. The Chinese are feeling their cheerios: the past decade of rapid economic growth, financial success and infrastructure modernization has given even the man in the Shanghai street the sense that nothing can stop an inevitable rise, one in which competition and potentially conflict with the U.S. is regarded as likely. Chinese nationalism is a serious and rising threat to good relations with the U.S., since it sees the U.S. as hegemonic, or at least as trying to hem in China’s growing power.
There is the irony: Hu Jintao, weak though he is in the panoply of Chinese leaders and lacking though he may be in real democratic legitimacy, is a bulwark (or at least a facade) of sorts against vigorous expressions of Chinese nationalism, which seem to be all the rage these days, especially in the military. So the Americans are once again caught in a situation where the democratic alternative, more nationalistic than the Hu Jintao we witnessed yesterday, would be a lot more difficult to deal with than the less democratic reality.
But China’s one-party system will not persist forever. There will be enormous risk to U.S. interests once that system starts to transition to something more obliged to reflect Chinese nationalism. The kind of cautious, low-key and mutually sensitive approach on display between the two presidents yesterday will not satisfy human rights hawks in the U.S. or Chinese nationalists, but it certainly sets a reasonable tone for the difficult challenges ahead.
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Why won’t China rein in North Korea?
That’s the question on my mind, even if much of what I read addresses the less interesting question of why we know better and the Chinese are making a mistake. The explanations for Beijing’s behavior are many and varied. From people who live closer than we do:
1. The South Asia Analysis Group (Subhash Kapila) suggests Pyonyang’s behavior “arises from a calibrated strategy operated in tandem with China’s increasing aggressiveness in East Asia”:
- China exploits North Korea as a strategic proxy against the U.S.;
- Washington responds timidly for fear of alienating China, hoping it may still emerge as a partner, even an ally;
- China is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
2. An Australian offers less dramatic explanations:
- Pyonyang has Beijing in a bind: “North Korea may be a bad friend, but it would be a worse enemy”;
- Beijing doesn’t want the international community to get into the habit of asking it to rein in pariahs;
- China thinks its coaxing will work better in the long term than a more rigorous approach.
Beijing’s main concern is generally thought to be stability. But why don’t they see North Korean behavior as threatening to stability? Are they happy to see the Americans, Japanese and South Koreans discomforted? Are they thinking that recent events will serve them well by hindering any moves towards reunification?
PS: As luck would have it, Victor Cha Sunday morning (I posted on Saturday) has
But because they are the only ones helping the North, China’s leaders are afraid that such a move [cutting off oil supplies to North Korea] would collapse the regime and send millions of starving refugees flooding over its border. The Chinese have no easy way of determining how much pressure they should use, so they remain paralyzed, making ineffectual gestures
Paralysis may not last forever.
PPS: Ed Joseph points out that this question was discussed Sunday on Fareed Zakharia’s GPS: “China experts provided insights on just that question. Most intriguing theory: China fears a precedent and a non-Communist, unified Korea on its border, according to the expert.” You can watch the discussion, which starts just before minute 33, here.
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