US Can Be Asias Copilot, Not Main Pilot

By Lee Byong-chul

During the presidential election in 2008, Democratic candidate Barack Obama said that he would ``pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy,'' while ``securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states.''

After the triumph, President Obama made a strategic decision to break with the Bush years by deleting an ``axis of evil'' inadvertently tagged to North Korea.

And Obama pledged to sit down with adversaries, for good reasons. Many pundits expected at the time that his policy shift would likely mark a starting point of establishing a good relationship between Washington and Pyongyang.

The Obama administration interpreted the nature of the North Korean nuclear issue in a completely different way. The administration saw the long ``headache'' as an antipathy of George W. Bush's unilateral neo-conservatism, and began its radical approach.

As expected, it backfired. A clear majority of skeptics over the clueless campaign rhetoric-like approach, which usually clashes with reality, already began to suspect whether the administration was looking to catch a hare with a tabor.

On cue, South Korea added another layer of outrage from North Korea, instead of building mutual trust. President Lee Myung-bak claimed in a prepared text for a radio address in early 2009 that, ``Rather than trying to be nice to North Korea at the start and ending up with poor results, I believe it's better to end up with good results.''

The conservative South Korean President calls himself a card-carrying pragmatist on the grounds that principled and transparent assistance works better than unconditional aid does to limit North Korea's nuclear program.

As a result, Seoul has been caught in self-hypnotism over the groundless optimism that Washington would keep a ``tough diplomacy'' toward Pyongyang.

The regime in the North instantly judged that Seoul and Washington were already out of touch with their diplomacy. Outraged, North Korea started escalating the degree of its threats and blackmailing again.

Although President Obama pressed the brutal regime in the North to abandon its foolhardy nuclear programs, threatening the U.S. would consider fresh and robust economic sanctions, there are very few who believe that sanctions will be pursued in the near term.

North Korea assumes that the Obama administration will not pursue serious negotiations or concentrate its immense power on the denuclearization of North Korea.

In the course of Washington's hesitance, Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions have mushroomed. The question is why Obama and his foreign policy team find it so hard to achieve North Korean denuclearization.

First, they judged incorrectly that the North would abandon its long-dormant aspirations of becoming a nuclear state, if it was offered economic assistance, diplomatic normalization and regime guarantees.

Yet the North merely wanted to ``date with America'' rather than ``hurriedly get married,'' while struggling to keep a thin lifeline directly connected to China. So, it was extremely naive to think there was a way to checkmate the poverty-stricken communist regime.

Figuratively speaking, the dowry given by America eventually failed to satisfy the self-complacent North. Now that Obama's popularity is down the road, it would be suicide to continue to ``suck the taxpayers' blood,'' such as through economic assistance, to energize its commitment to resolving the never-ending nuclear issue.

Second, the Obama administration failed to predict the overwhelming immensity of Chinese influence over the whole matter of North Korea, including denuclearization.

China is an entity not only to bridge a gap between the U.S. and North Korea, but to widen the gap as well. Geographically and militarily, China would be the fastest to enter North Korean territory in case a contingency happens in the neighborhood country.

Reaching the pinnacle of global power after the threshold of modernity, China as the only rival state against the U.S. is now able to insulate the Kim regime from any external threats ― economically and militarily.

Right now, China seems to require America to view Chinese influence as the equivalent of American hyper-power, stating that ``This is not the right time or right moment for sanctions because diplomatic efforts are still ongoing'' with regard to the speed and direction of denuclearization.

The administration wasted more than one year trying to negotiate with North Korea and to embrace the eventual goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. With Chinese selective engagement activated, the nuclear negotiations have taken a backseat in the long run.

Third, China's strategic recalcitrance on the nuclear issue is inevitable, given that how to end it could maximize the extent of American national interest on the Korean Peninsula.

Namely, the unstoppable growth of China's economy is reshaping the security environment in Northeast Asia. And China shows the U.S. that the region can be no longer be a playground for America only ― raising the conflict incrementally. That said, Asia can be led by the undemocratic China, not by America.

The Obama administration now needs to move closer to Asia, where its traditional allies find themselves insecure and cautious as China newly emerges as a global power.

Now that any attempt to decouple these allies from the U.S. is more likely to threaten regional security and stability than ever, Asia is looking for clear American leadership.

Lee Byong-chul is a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul. He can be reached at bcleebc@gmail.com.