China’s Growing Power and Influence in Asia: Implications for U.S. Policy”
Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on: “China as an Emerging Regional and Technology Power: Implications for U.S. Economic and Security Interests” February 13, 2004 (University of California—San Diego)
* David M. Lampton is director of Chinese Studies at The Nixon Center and the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
China’s Influence Is Growing:
There have been six post-9/11 alterations in the regional and global security environments most significant for American interests and the prospects for continued U.S.-China cooperation, security and otherwise:
·China’s economic and diplomatic clout in Asia has dramatically increased since 1997, in the context of a Washington preoccupied elsewhere and a less economically potent Japan.China's increased power is reflected in the realms of economic power (remunerative), military power (coercive), and even ideas (normative), with the increase in economic influence being most dramatic. Further, in its diplomatic strategy in the region and the world beyond China is leading with its economic power, placing less emphasis on military power, with Taiwan being the principal exception in this regard. Nonetheless, American preeminence in Asia remains the central geopolitical and economic fact, a circumstance reflected in the PRC’s priority on maintaining productive relations with Washington.
·North Korean nuclear weapons programs have fostered Sino-American cooperation to a degree few would have predicted in November 2002, simultaneously strengthened U.S. cooperation with Japan, and have had the opposite effect with respect to Seoul-Washington ties. China’s diplomatic heft has gone up by virtue of its efforts to broker a non-disruptive resolution of the crisis.
·Japan gradually is assuming more responsibility for its own defense and beginning to provide limited “global, public security goods,” a development that is occurring with American blessings and Chinese wariness. Simultaneously, Japan is developing ever-deeper economic ties with the PRC and Beijing is not making an issue of Tokyo’s changing security role, though it is worried. The U.S.-Japan alliance is strong, in part as a hedge against a rising China, and, Chinese leaders have partially conceded that the U.S.-Japan alliance has given Beijing a “free ride” on security. The net is that China seems reconciled to a more “normal” Japan and the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance as long as neither are aimed at promoting the separation of Taiwan or containing China, concerns that never will be fully assuaged in Beijing.
·South Korean-Chinese economic (and to a lesser extent security) relations have grown with remarkable speed since the two nations established diplomatic ties in 1992. Today, Beijing and Seoul often have been closer on inter-Korean Peninsula issues than Washington and Seoul. The ROK-US alliance relationship is troubled, raising the issue of its long-term prospects.
·The War on Terror (here to include the war in Iraq and counter-proliferation policy) has fostered growing and important Sino-American cooperation. Cooperation in this domain has reduced some of the vigor with which Washington’s demands on China in some other domains (economic and civil rights) are pursued. Beijing was (and remains) very helpful in the War on Terror and it served minimal American interests by getting out of the way with respect to Iraq.
·With respect to Taiwan, the core friction in U.S.-China relations since 1950, micro-nationalism and competitive electoral politics have energized Taipei’s increasing efforts to assert autonomy. This threatens Beijing’s and Washington’s interests to the extent that a conflict in the Strait could ensue that neither capital desires. For now, this has produced Sino-American cooperation (perhaps limited and temporary) and generated growing friction between Washington and Taipei. American allies and friends increasingly are allergic to a Taiwan Strait conflict and Tokyo and Paris have urged restraint on Taipei in the run up to the March 2004 presidential elections, as did President Bush on December 9, 2003.
Cumulatively, the developments highlighted above reflect the comprehensive growth of Chinese power in the realm of money, coercive force, and ideas. What are the implications of China’s rise for American interests, broadly defined?
Implications for the United States:
It is inaccurate to say that Asia has become Sinocentric. The economic and military
power of America remains a central geopolitical and economic fact for every nation on
the PRC’s periphery. Moreover, China is not yet a balanced comprehensive power; its
coercive and normative power still weak compared to its growing economic muscle.
Also, China’s influence remains uneven around its circumference—strongest on the
Korean Peninsula, weakest (but growing) in Central Asia, and growing briskly
throughout East and Southeast Asia. Moreover, it is fashionable, but mistaken, to ignore
Japan’s current power and future potential because of its protracted national malaise.
And finally, at the same time that the PRC’s neighbors seek to gain from enhanced
Chinese capabilities, they also seek more distant balancers to hedge against Beijing’s
power.
While neither the United States nor others ought to overreact to China’s increased
power and influence, the success of Chinese policy does have implications for America.
The most important of these implications is that the principal directions in which Chinese
policy has moved (toward the use of remunerative and normative instruments, and away
from coercive power [except with respect to Taiwan]) are consistent with fundamental
U.S. interests. Washington ought not deflect China from its basic heading. Nonetheless,
rising Chinese power requires some adjustments, and perhaps profound changes, both in
U.S. policies of long-standing and those of more recent vintage. China’s rise has
implications for regional alliance and security structures, the kinds and mixes of power
America exerts in the region, and Washington’s ability to use sanctions and other
instruments of policy.
A key point is that Washington’s post-9/11 mix of power, in the eyes of many throughout
Asia, has overemphasized military strength and takes insufficient advantage of America’s
economic and potential normative muscle. Normatively, the United States now is less
attractive throughout Asia than it has been in the past, if almost any public opinion survey
is to be believed. Washington has become too distracted. Americans need to do more
listening throughout the region. Finally, Washington needs to place more emphasis on
multilateral security and economic relationships. As well, the difficulties visa issuance
are creating to economic and cultural exchange are a serious impediment to the effective
employment of American economic and normative power.
With respect to the realm of coercive power, perhaps the most dramatic consequence of
China’s rise has been the weakening of the U.S.-South Korea Alliance and the longerterm
effects that China’s growing strength may have on Washington’s other regional
alliances. While growing Chinese military power may strengthen the perceived need in
Japan, the Philippines, and perhaps Australia for alliance with Washington, the PRC’s
growing economic attraction and its currently benign foreign policy may simultaneously
lessen the perceived need for these pacts. Which of these contending forces prevails (the
China threat or China’s attractiveness) will depend greatly on how both Beijing and
Washington play their cards in the future. Thus far, Beijing has played them skillfully.
In the case of South Korea, the strains in the U.S.-ROK Alliance already are everywhere
apparent. Beijing’s economic attraction to Seoul, China’s greater leverage over North
Korea than any other outside power, and a U.S. policy toward Pyongyang that worries
South Koreans cumulatively have put China in the catbird seat. While it is far too early
to pronounce the death of the U.S.-ROK Alliance, restoring its vitality is going to require
changes. In the more distant future, Washington may have to consider whether a new
security framework (perhaps involving the six parties in Northeast Asia) is needed to
replace or supplement the traditional bilateral alliances in the region.
Turning to the Taiwan Strait, this is the one issue that, if mismanaged (by Taipei, Beijing,
and/or Washington), could produce a dramatic increase in the acquisition and use of
Chinese coercive power. The many deficiencies of Beijing’s policies toward Taipei,
combined with micro-nationalism on the island, create recurrent pressures on Taiwan to
assert autonomy in ways that are dangerous. Washington’s policy of deterrence has
helped restrain Beijing from either overreacting to Taipei’s actions or being proactively
coercive. But, Washington should be no less vigilant with respect to Taipei’s actions.
The ball on which Washington should keep its eye is stability and growth in the region as
a whole and encouraging Beijing to remain on the policy trajectory described above.
This likely will require U.S. administrations and the U.S. Congress to periodically be
firm with Taipei. President George W. Bush’s December 9, 2003 statement in front of
visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (“The comments and actions made by the leader of
Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status
quo, which we oppose.”) is an example of what periodically may be required.
Even more fundamentally, as more and more American allies and friends in the region
develop positive stakes with the PRC, how supportive are they likely to be of an
American intervention in the Taiwan Strait? When Deputy Secretary of State Armitage
went to Australia in early 2002 and suggested that Washington expected Canberra to be
at its side in a Taiwan contingency, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser
said: “[The Australia-New Zealand-United States Defense Treaty] designed to achieve
Australian security is now being distorted potentially to embroil us in a conflict of
America’s choosing with another super power [China].”
The PRC’s rise also has important implications for the remunerative realm of U.S.
policy. Most fundamentally, as the PRC increasingly becomes an engine for regional and
global economic growth, the strategic importance of stable ties between Washington and
Beijing will grow beyond narrowly defined security interests.
The fact that China is embedded deeply within key global supply chains and increasingly
has become the final assembly point for products that incorporate the value-added
components made by many of America’s friends throughout the region, means that
Washington increasingly will discover that to economically retaliate against China is to
economically strike America’s allies and friends. Put crudely, if on a given one-dollar
item (produced in China and intended for export to the United States) China’s valueadded
is 15 cents per dollar, one dollar of U.S. sanctions directed at this product will
inflict 85 cents of pain on Washington’s friends. Using such a policy instrument too
frequently is both bad economics and bad international politics.
U.S. multinational firms that have invested in the PRC both as an export platform and as
a base from which to penetrate China’s domestic market increasingly will resist
unilateral, punitive impulses in Washington. Moreover, the degree to which China
recycles dollars earned in this globalized trade into the United States (in the form of U.S.
Treasury notes and other debt instruments) means that Washington increasingly will find
it difficult to punish Beijing without punishing itself—China is the number two holder of
U.S. Treasury notes after Japan.
Further, as more and more countries become significant suppliers to China, they may
well find that their economic interests often parallel those of the PRC. For example,
when in late-2003 and 2004 many in Washington called for Beijing to revalue or float its
currency, few in Asia supported the U.S. position. As Taiwan’s China Post put it, “So
the notion of getting Beijing to relax its currency controls—an American economic
priority—is hardly a top goal in this part of the planet.”
Turning to the realm of normative power, the United States needs not only to pursue the
war on terror and associated activities, it also must devote more economic and diplomatic
effort to remaining a nation that attracts through the power of positive example.
If it is to replenish its stock of soft power, the first place the United States must begin is
by placing greater emphasis (both rhetorical and financial) on economic, social, and
political development through institution building, talking more about development as a
process rather than simply as an end state in which there is democracy, rule of law, and
human rights.
The developments enumerated above point to something very fundamental. China is becoming a more adept player in the emerging regional and global orders--America must
adapt its economy and its policies to the logic of the system it has played a central role
in creating. China’s rise could be profoundly positive for America and for the world
system, or it could lead to friction and conceivably conflict. If positive outcomes are to
occur, it will be because both countries responded positively to the opportunities for
cooperation that interdependence creates.作者: 白鹤 时间: 2007-11-1 14:45
Iraq's Civil War
Summary: The White House still avoids the label, but by any reasonable historical standard, the Iraqi civil war has begun. The record of past such wars suggests that Washington cannot stop this one -- and that Iraqis will be able to reach a power-sharing deal only after much more fighting, if then. The United States can help bring about a settlement eventually by balancing Iraqi factions from afar, but there is little it can do to avert bloodshed now.
James D. Fearon is Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.
NO GRACEFUL EXIT
As sectarian violence spiked in Baghdad around last Thanksgiving, Bush administration spokespeople found themselves engaged in a strange semantic fight with American journalists over whether the conflict in Iraq is appropriately described as a civil war. It is not hard to understand why the administration strongly resists the label. For one thing, the U.S. media would interpret a change in the White House's position on this question as a major concession, an open acknowledgment of dashed hopes and failed policy. For another, the administration worries that if the U.S. public comes to see the violence in Iraq as a civil war, it will be even less willing to tolerate continued U.S. military engagement. "If it's a civil war, what are we doing there, mixed up in someone else's fight?" Americans may ask.
But if semantics could matter a lot, it is less obvious whether they should influence U.S. policy. Is it just a matter of domestic political games and public perceptions, or does the existence of civil war in Iraq have implications for what can be achieved there and what strategy Washington should pursue?
In fact, there is a civil war in progress in Iraq, one comparable in important respects to other civil wars that have occurred in postcolonial states with weak political institutions. Those cases suggest that the Bush administration's political objective in Iraq -- creating a stable, peaceful, somewhat democratic regime that can survive the departure of U.S. troops -- is unrealistic. Given this unrealistic political objective, military strategy of any sort is doomed to fail almost regardless of whether the administration goes with the "surge" option, as President George W. Bush has proposed, or shifts toward a pure training mission, as advised by the Iraq Study Group.
Even if an increase in the number of U.S. combat troops reduces violence in Baghdad and so buys time for negotiations on power sharing in the current Iraqi government, there is no good reason to expect that subsequent reductions would not revive the violent power struggle. Civil wars are rarely ended by stable power-sharing agreements. When they are, it typically takes combatants who are not highly factionalized and years of fighting to clarify the balance of power. Neither condition is satisfied by Iraq at present. Factionalism among the Sunnis and the Shiites approaches levels seen in Somalia, and multiple armed groups on both sides appear to believe that they could wrest control of the government if U.S. forces left. Such beliefs will not change quickly while large numbers of U.S. troops remain.
As the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad proceeds, the weak Shiite-dominated government is inevitably becoming an open partisan in a nasty civil war between Sunni and Shiite Arabs. As a result, President Bush's commitment to making a "success" of the current government will increasingly amount to siding with the Shiites, a position that is morally dubious and probably not in the interest of either the United States or long-term regional peace and stability. A decisive military victory by a Shiite-dominated government is not possible anytime soon given the favorable conditions for insurgency fought from the Sunni-dominated provinces. Furthermore, this course encourages Sunni nationalists to turn to al Qaeda in Iraq for support against Shiite militias and the Iraqi army. It also essentially aligns Washington with Tehran against the Sunni-dominated states to the west.
As long as the Bush administration remains absolutely committed to propping up the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki or a similarly configured successor, the U.S. government will have limited leverage with almost all of the relevant parties. By contrast, moving away from absolute commitment -- for example, by beginning to shift U.S. combat troops out of the central theaters -- would increase U.S. diplomatic and military leverage on almost all fronts. Doing so would not allow the current or the next U.S. administration to bring a quick end to the civil war, which most likely will last for some time. But it would allow the United States to play a balancing role between the combatants that would be more conducive to reaching, in the long run, a stable resolution in which Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish interests are well represented in a decent Iraqi government. If the Iraqis ever manage to settle on the power-sharing agreement that is the objective of current U.S. policy, it will come only after bitter fighting in the civil war that is already under way.
WAR RECORDS
A civil war is a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies. Everyday usage of the term "civil war" does not entail a clear threshold for how much violence is necessary to qualify a conflict as a civil war, as opposed to terrorism or low-level political strife. Political scientists sometimes use a threshold of at least 1,000 killed over the course of a conflict. Based on this arguably rather low figure, there have been around 125 civil wars since the end of World War II, and there are roughly 20 ongoing today. If that threshold is increased to an average of 1,000 people killed per year, there have still been over 90 civil wars since 1945. (It is often assumed that the prevalence of civil wars is a post-Cold War phenomenon, but in fact the number of ongoing civil wars increased steadily from 1945 to the early 1990s, before receding somewhat to late-1970s levels.) The rate of killing in Iraq -- easily more than 60,000 in the last three years -- puts the conflict in the company of many recent ones that are routinely described as civil wars (for example, those in Algeria, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Sri Lanka). Indeed, even the conservative estimate of 60,000 deaths would make Iraq the ninth-deadliest civil war since 1945 in terms of annual casualties.
A major reason for the prevalence of civil wars is that they have been hard to end. Their average duration since 1945 has been about ten years, with half lasting more than seven years. Their long duration seems to result from the way in which most of these conflicts have been fought: namely, by rebel groups using guerrilla tactics, usually operating in rural regions of postcolonial countries with weak administrative, police, and military capabilities. Civil wars like that of the United States, featuring conventional armies facing off along well-defined fronts, have been highly unusual. Far more typical have been conflicts such as those in Algeria, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and southern and western Sudan. As these cases illustrate, rural guerrilla warfare can be an extremely robust tactic, allowing relatively small numbers of rebels to gain partial control of large amounts of territory for years despite expensive and brutal military campaigns against them.
The civil war in Iraq began in 2004 as a primarily urban guerrilla struggle by Sunni insurgent groups hoping to drive out the United States and to regain the power held by Sunnis under Saddam Hussein. It escalated in 2006 with the proliferation and intensification of violence by Shiite militias, who ostensibly seek to defend Shiites from the Sunni insurgents and who have pursued this end with "ethnic cleansing" and a great deal of gang violence and thuggery.
This sort of urban guerrilla warfare and militia-based conflict differs from the typical post-1945 civil war, but there are analogues. One little-discussed but useful comparison is the violent conflict that wracked Turkish cities between 1977 and 1980. According to standard estimates, fighting among local militias and paramilitaries aligning themselves with "the left" or "the right" killed more than 20 people per day in thousands of attacks and counterattacks, assassinations, and death-squad campaigns. Beginning with a massacre by rightists in the city of Kahramanmaras in December 1978, the left-right conflicts spiraled into ethnic violence, pitting Sunnis against Alawites against Kurds against Shiites in various cities.
As in Iraq today, the organization of the Turkish combatants was highly local and factionalized, especially on the left; the fighting often looked like urban gang violence. But, also as in Iraq, the gangs and militias had shady ties to the political parties controlling the democratically elected national parliament as well. (Indeed, one might describe the civil conflicts in Turkey then and in Iraq now as "militiaized party politics.") Intense political rivalries between the leading Turkish politicians, along with their politically useful ties to the paramilitaries, prevented the democratic regime from moving decisively to end the violence. Much as in Iraq today, the elected politicians fiddled while the cities burned. Fearing that the lower ranks of the military were becoming infected with the violent factionalism of the society at large, military leaders undertook a coup in September 1980, after which they unleashed a major wave of repression against militias and gang members of both the left and the right. At the price of military rule (for what turned out to be three years), the urban terror was ended.
Especially if the United States withdraws from Iraq, the odds are good that a military coup in which some subset of the Iraqi army leadership declares that the elected government is not working and that a strong hand is necessary to impose order will result. It is unlikely, however, that a military regime in Iraq would be able to follow the example of the one in Turkey in the early 1980s. The Turkish military was a strong institution with enough autonomy and enough loyalty to the Kemalist national ideal that it could act independently of the divisions tearing the country apart. Although the army favored the right more than the left, Turkish citizens saw it as largely standing apart from the factional fighting -- and thus as a credible intervenor. By contrast, the Iraqi army and, even more, the Iraqi police force appear to have little autonomy from society and politics. The police look like militia members in different uniforms, sometimes with some U.S. training. The army has somewhat more institutional coherence and autonomy, but it is Shiite-dominated and has few functional mixed units. Some evidence suggests that high-level figures in the army are facilitating, if not actively pursuing, ethnic cleansing. Accordingly, a power grab by a subset of the army leadership would be widely interpreted as a power grab by a particular Shiite faction -- and could lead the army to break up along sectarian and, possibly, factional lines.
What happened in Lebanon in 1975-76 may offer better insights into what is likely to happen in Iraq. As violence between Christian militias and Palestine Liberation Organization factions started to escalate in 1975, the Lebanese army leadership initially stayed out of the conflict, realizing that the army would splinter if it tried to intervene. But as the violence escalated, the army eventually did intervene -- and broke apart. Lebanon then entered a long period of conflict during which an array of Christian, Sunni, Shiite, and PLO militias fought one another off and on (as much within sectarian groups as between them). Syrian and Israeli military involvement sometimes reduced and sometimes escalated the violence. Alliances shifted, often in surprising ways. The Syrians, for example, initially sided with the Christians against the PLO.
A similar scenario is already playing out in Iraq. Whether U.S. forces stay or go, Iraq south of the Kurdish areas will probably look more and more like Lebanon during its long civil war. Effective political authority will devolve to regions, cities, and even neighborhoods. After a period of ethnic cleansing and fighting to draw lines, an equilibrium with lower-level, more intermittent sectarian violence will set in, punctuated by larger campaigns financed and aided by foreign powers. Violence and exploitation within sects will most likely worsen, as the neighborhood militias and gangs that carried out the ethnic cleansing increasingly fight among themselves over turf, protection rackets, and trade. As in Lebanon, there will probably be a good deal of intervention by neighboring states -- especially Iran -- but it will not necessarily bring them great strategic gains. To the contrary, it may bring them a great deal of grief, just as it has the United States.
LEARNING TO SHARE?
When they do finally end, civil wars typically conclude with a decisive military victory for one side. Of the roughly 55 civil wars fought for control of a central government (as opposed to for secession or regional autonomy) since 1955, fully 75 percent ended with a clear victory for one side. The government ultimately crushed the rebels in at least 40 percent of the 55 cases, whereas the rebels won control of the center in 35 percent. Power-sharing agreements that divide up control of a central government among the combatants have been far less common. By my reckoning, at best, 9 of the 55 cases, or about 16 percent, ended this way. Examples include El Salvador in 1992, South Africa in 1994, and Tajikistan in 1997.
If successful power-sharing agreements rarely end civil wars, it is not for lack of effort. Negotiations on power sharing are common in the midst of civil wars, as are failed attempts, often with the help of outside intervention by states or international institutions, to implement such agreements. The point of departure for both the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the rebel attack that ended it, for example, was the failure of an extensive power-sharing agreement between the Rwandan government, Hutu opposition parties, and the Tutsi insurgents.
Power-sharing agreements rarely work in large part because civil wars cause combatants to be organized in a way that produces mutually reinforcing fears and temptations: combatants are afraid that the other side will use force to grab power and at the same time are tempted to use force to grab power themselves. If one militia fears that another will try to use force to win control of the army or a city, then it has a strong incentive to use force to prevent this. The other militia understands this incentive, which gives it a good reason to act exactly as the first militia feared. In the face of these mutual, self-fulfilling fears, agreements on paper about dividing up or sharing control of political offices, the military, or, say, oil revenues are often just that -- paper. They may survive while a powerful third party implicitly threatens to prevent violent power grabs (as the United States has done in Iraq), but they are likely to disintegrate otherwise.
The Bush administration has attempted to help put in place an Iraqi government based on a power-sharing agreement among Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish leaders, but it has done so in the midst of an escalating civil war. The historical evidence suggests that this is a Sisyphean task. The effective provision of security by an intervening power may even undermine the belief that the government could stand on its own without the third party's backing. U.S. military intervention in Iraq is thus unlikely to produce a government that can survive by itself whether the troops stay ten more months or ten more years.
Could Iraq in 2007 be one of the rare cases in which power sharing successfully ends a civil war? Examining earlier such cases suggests that they have two distinctive features that make power sharing feasible. First, a stable agreement is typically reached only after a period of fighting has clarified the relative military capabilities of the various sides. Each side needs to come to the conclusion that it cannot get everything it wants by violence. For example, the Dayton agreement that divided power among the parties to the Bosnian war required not only NATO intervention to get them to the table and enforce the deal but also more than three years of intense fighting, which had brought the combatants essentially to a stalemate by the summer of 1995. (Even then, the agreement would not have held, and the government would surely have collapsed, if not for a continued third-party guarantee from NATO and effective sovereign control by the Office of the High Representative created under Dayton.)
Second, a power-sharing deal tends to hold only when every side is relatively cohesive. How can one party expect that another will live up to its obligations if it has no effective control over its own members? Attempts to construct power-sharing deals to end civil wars in Burundi and Somalia, for example, have been frustrated for years by factionalism within rebel groups. Conversely, the consolidation of power by one rebel faction can sometimes enable a peace agreement -- as occurred prior to the deal that ended the first war between Khartoum and southern Sudanese rebels in 1972.
Neither of these conditions holds for Iraq. First, there are many significant (and well-armed) Sunni groups that seem to believe that without U.S. troops present, they could win back control of Baghdad and the rest of the country. And there are many Shiites, including many with guns, who believe that as the majority group they can and will maintain political domination of Iraq. Moreover, among the Shiites, Muqtada al-Sadr seems to believe that he could wrest control from his rivals if the United States left. Indeed, if the United States withdraws, violence between Shiite militias will likely escalate further. Open fighting between Shiite militias might, in turn, reaffirm the Sunni insurgents' belief that they will be able to retake power.
Second, both the Sunnis and the Shiites are highly factionalized, at the national political level and at the level of neighborhood militias and gangs. Shiite politicians are divided into at least four major parties, and one of these, Dawa (the party of Prime Minister Maliki), has historically been divided into three major factions. Sadr is constantly described in the U.S. media as the leader of the largest and most aggressive Shiite militia in Iraq, but it has never been clear if he can control what the militias who praise his name actually do. The Iraqi Sunnis are similarly divided among tribes outside of Baghdad, and the organizational anarchy of Sunni Islam seems to make groupwide coordination extremely difficult.
If Maliki had the authority of a Nelson Mandela, and a party organization with the (relative) coherence and dominance of the African National Congress in the antiapartheid struggle, he would be able to move more effectively to incorporate and co-opt various Sunni leaders into the government without fear of undermining his own power relative to that of his various Shiite political adversaries. He would also be better able to make credible commitments to deliver on promises made to Sunni leaders. As it is, intra-Shiite political rivalries render the new government almost completely dysfunctional. Its ministers see their best option as cultivating militias (or ties to militias) for current and coming fights, extortion rackets, and smuggling operations.
Tragically, more civil war may be the only way to reach a point where power sharing could become a feasible solution to the problem of governing Iraq. More fighting holds the prospect of clarifying the balance of forces and creating pressures for internal consolidation on one or both sides, thereby providing stronger grounds for either a victory by one side or a stable negotiated settlement. Should the latter eventually come into view, some sort of regional or international peacekeeping force will almost surely be required to help bring it into being. The Iraq Study Group report is quite right that Washington should be setting up diplomatic mechanisms for such eventualities, sooner rather than later.
BALANCING ACT
Hopefully, this analysis is too pessimistic. Perhaps Iraq's elected politicians will muddle through, and perhaps the Iraqi army will, with U.S. support, develop the capability and motivation to act effectively and evenhandedly against insurgents and militias on all sides. The optimistic scenario is so unlikely, however, that policymakers must consider the implications if civil war in Iraq continues and escalates.
Suppose that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad continues and Sunni insurgent groups and Shiite militias continue to fight one another, U.S. troops, and civilians. If the Bush administration sticks to its "stay the course toward victory" approach, of which the surge option is the latest incarnation, it will become increasingly apparent that this policy amounts to siding with the Shiites in an extremely vicious Sunni-Shiite war. U.S. troops may play some positive role in preventing human rights abuses by Iraqi army units and slowing down violence and ethnic cleansing. But as long as the United States remains committed to trying to make this Iraqi government "succeed" on the terms President Bush has laid out, there is no escaping the fact that the central function of U.S. troops will be to backstop Maliki's government or its successor. That security gives Maliki and his coalition the ability to tacitly pursue (or acquiesce in) a dirty war against actual and imagined Sunni antagonists while publicly supporting "national reconciliation."
This policy is hard to defend on the grounds of either morality or national interest. Even if Shiite thugs and their facilitators in the government could succeed in ridding Baghdad of Sunnis, it is highly unlikely that they would be able to suppress the insurgency in the Sunni-majority provinces in western Iraq or to prevent attacks in Baghdad and other places where Shiites live. In other words, the current U.S. policy probably will not lead to a decisive military victory anytime soon, if ever. And even if it did, would Washington want it to? The rise of a brutal, ethnically exclusivist, Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad would further the perception of Iran as the ascendant regional power. Moreover, U.S. backing for such a government would give Iraqi Sunnis and the Sunni-dominated countries in the Middle East no reason not to support al Qaeda as an ally in Iraq. By spurring these states to support Sunni forces fighting the Shiite government, such backing would ultimately pit the United States against those states in a proxy war.
To avail itself of more attractive policy options, the Bush administration (or its successor) must break off its unconditional military support for the Shiite-dominated government that it helped bring to power in Baghdad. Washington's commitment to Maliki's government undermines U.S. diplomatic and military leverage with almost every relevant party in the country and the region. Starting to move away from this commitment by shifting combat troops out of the central theaters could, accordingly, increase U.S. leverage with almost all parties. The current Shiite political leadership would then have incentives to try to gain back U.S. military support by, for example, making more genuine efforts to incorporate Sunnis into the government or reining in Shiite militias. (Admittedly, whether it has the capacity to do either is unclear.) As U.S. troops departed, Sunni insurgent groups would begin to see the United States less as a committed ally of the "Persians" and more as a potential source of financial or even military backing. Washington would also have more leverage with Iran and Syria, because the U.S. military would not be completely bogged down in Baghdad and Anbar Province -- and because both of those countries have a direct interest in avoiding increased chaos in Iraq.
Again, none of this would make for a quick end to the civil war, which will probably last for some time in any event. But it would allow the United States to move toward a balancing role that would be more conducive to ultimately gaining a stable resolution in which Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish interests are represented in a decent Iraqi government.
Despite the horrific violence currently tearing Iraq apart, in the long run there is hope for the return of a viable Iraqi state based on a political bargain among Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders. Indeed, they may end up cooperating on terms set by a constitution similar to the current one -- although only after a significant period of fighting. The basis for an Iraqi state is the common interest of all parties, especially the elites, in the efficient exploitation of oil resources. Continued civil war could persuade Shiite leaders that they cannot fully enjoy oil profits and political control without adequately buying off Sunni groups, who can maintain a costly insurgency. And civil war could persuade the Sunnis that a return to Sunni dominance and Shiite quiescence is impossible. Kurdish leaders have an interest in the autonomy they have already secured but with access to functioning oil pipelines leading south.
There are, of course, other possible outcomes of continued civil war in Iraq, including a formal breakup of the country or a decisive victory south of the Kurdish areas by a Sunni- or Shiite-dominated military organization that would impose a harsh dictatorship. Insofar as the United States can influence the ultimate outcome, neither of these is as good a long-term policy objective as a power-sharing agreement. As the Iraq Study Group has argued, attempting to impose some kind of partition would probably increase the killing. In addition, there are no obvious defensible borders to separate Sunnis from Shiites; the Sunnis would not rest content with an oil-poor patch of western Iraq; it is not clear that new Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish states would be much more peaceful than Iraq is at present; and there would be considerable economic inefficiencies from making three states from one in this area. It is conceivable that civil war will someday lead the combatants in Iraq to agree on Iraq's partition anyway, but this is a decision for Iraqis rather than outsiders to make.
Most civil wars end with a decisive military victory -- and this one may as well -- but a decisive military victory and political dictatorship for some Sunni or Shiite group is even less appealing as a long-term U.S. policy objective. A decisive military victory for a Shiite-dominated faction would favor both Iran and al Qaeda, and a decisive victory for Sunni insurgents would amount to restoring oppressive minority rule, a major reason for the current mess.
Two less extreme outcomes would be much better for most Iraqis, for regional peace and stability, and for U.S. interests in the region. The first would be a power-sharing agreement among a small number of Iraqi actors who actually commanded a military force and controlled territory, to be stabilized at least initially by an international peacekeeping operation. The second would be the rise of a dominant military force whose leader had both the inclination and the ability to cut deals with local "warlords" or political bosses from all other groups. Neither outcome can be imposed at this point by the United States. Both could be reached only through fighting and bargaining carried out primarily by Iraqis.
To facilitate either outcome, the U.S. government would have to pursue a policy of balancing, using diplomatic, financial, and possibly some military tools to encourage the perception that no one group or faction can win without sharing power and resources. A balancing policy might be pursued from "offshore," implemented mainly by supplying monetary and material support to tactical allies, or "onshore," possibly drawing on air strikes or other forms of U.S. military intervention originating from bases in Iraq or close by. The mechanics would necessarily depend on a complicated set of diplomatic, political, and military contingencies. The important point is that the only alternative to some form of balancing policy would be to support decisive victory by one side or the other, which would probably be undesirable even in the unlikely event that victory came soon.
Even if the coming "surge" in U.S. combat troops manages to lower the rate of killing in Baghdad, very little in relevant historical experience or the facts of this case suggests that U.S. troops would not be stuck in Iraq for decades, keeping sectarian and factional power struggles at bay while fending off jihadist and nationalist attacks. The more likely scenario is that the Bush administration's commitment to the "success" of the Maliki government will make the United States passively complicit in a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing. Standing back to adopt a more evenhanded policy in the civil war already in progress is a more sensible and defensible course. To pursue it, the Bush administration or its successor would first have to give up on the idea that a few more U.S. brigades or a change in U.S. tactics will make for an Iraq that can, in President Bush's words, "govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself" once U.S. troops are gone.作者: 白鹤 时间: 2007-11-1 14:45
The New New World Order
Summary: Controversies over the war in Iraq and U.S. unilateralism have overshadowed a more pragmatic and multilateral component of the Bush administration's grand strategy: its attempt to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy and international institutions in order to account for shifts in the global distribution of power and the emergence of states such as China and India. This unheralded move is well intentioned and well advised, and Washington should redouble its efforts.
Daniel W. Drezner is Associate Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the author of "All Politics Is Global."
RISING AND FALLING
Throughout the twentieth century, the list of the world's great powers was predictably short: the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and northwestern Europe. The twenty-first century will be different. China and India are emerging as economic and political heavyweights: China holds over a trillion dollars in hard currency reserves, India's high-tech sector is growing by leaps and bounds, and both countries, already recognized nuclear powers, are developing blue-water navies. The National Intelligence Council, a U.S. government think tank, projects that by 2025, China and India will have the world's second- and fourth-largest economies, respectively. Such growth is opening the way for a multipolar era in world politics.
This tectonic shift will pose a challenge to the U.S.-dominated global institutions that have been in place since the 1940s. At the behest of Washington, these multilateral regimes have promoted trade liberalization, open capital markets, and nuclear nonproliferation, ensuring relative peace and prosperity for six decades -- and untold benefits for the United States. But unless rising powers such as China and India are incorporated into this framework, the future of these international regimes will be uncomfortably uncertain.
Given its performance over the last six years, one would not expect the Bush administration to handle this challenge terribly well. After all, its unilateralist impulses, on vivid display in the Iraq war, have become a lightning rod for criticism of U.S. foreign policy. But the Iraq controversy has overshadowed a more pragmatic and multilateral component of the Bush administration's grand strategy: Washington's attempt to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy and international institutions in order to account for shifts in the global distribution of power. The Bush administration has been reallocating the resources of the executive branch to focus on emerging powers. In an attempt to ensure that these countries buy into the core tenets of the U.S.-created world order, Washington has tried to bolster their profiles in forums ranging from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the World Health Organization, on issues as diverse as nuclear proliferation, monetary relations, and the environment. Because these efforts have focused more on so-called low politics than on the global war on terrorism, they have flown under the radar of many observers. But in fact, George W. Bush has revived George H. W. Bush's call for a "new world order" -- by creating, in effect, a new new world order.
This unheralded effort is well intentioned and well advised. It is, however, running into two major roadblocks. The first is that empowering countries on the rise means disempowering countries on the wane. Accordingly, some members of the European Union have been less than enthusiastic about aspects of the United States' strategy. To be sure, the EU has made its own bilateral accommodations and has been happy to cooperate with emerging countries in response to American unilateralism. But European states have been less willing to reduce their overrepresentation in multilateral institutions. The second problem, which is of the Bush administration's own making, stems from Washington's reputation for unilateralism. Because the U.S. government is viewed as having undercut many global governance structures in recent years, any effort by this administration to rewrite the rules of the global game is naturally seen as yet another attempt by Washington to escape the constraints of international law. A coalition of the skeptical, which includes states such as Argentina, Nigeria, and Pakistan, will make it difficult for the United States to engineer the orderly inclusion of India and China in the concert of great powers.
Despite these difficulties, it is in the United States' interest to redouble its efforts. Growing anti-Americanism has revitalized groupings of states traditionally hostile to the United States, such as the Nonaligned Movement. To overcome such skepticism, the United States must be prepared to make real concessions. If China and India are not made to feel welcome inside existing international institutions, they might create new ones -- leaving the United States on the outside looking in.
PLUS 茿 CHANGE
When the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and NATO were created in the late 1940s, the United States was the undisputed hegemon of the Western world. These organizations reflected its dominance and its preferences and were designed to boost the power of the United States and its European allies. France and the United Kingdom had been great powers for centuries; in the 1950s the rules of the game still accorded them important perquisites. They were given permanent seats on the UN Security Council. It was agreed that the IMF's executive director would always be a European. And Europe was de facto granted a voice equal to that of the United States in the GATT.
Today, the distribution of power in the world is very different. According to Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, by 2010, the annual growth in combined national income from Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- the so-called BRIC countries -- will be greater than that from the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy combined; by 2025, it will be twice that of the G-7 (the group of highly industrialized countries).
These trends were already evident in the 1990s -- and the end of the Cold War presented an opportunity to adapt international institutions to rising powers. At the time, however, Washington chose to reinforce preexisting arrangements. The GATT became the World Trade Organization. NATO expanded its membership to eastern European states and its sphere of influence to the Balkans. The macroeconomic policies known as the Washington consensus became gospel in major international financial institutions. There were few institutional changes to accommodate rising powers, besides the creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in 1989 and China's hard-won admission to the WTO in 2001. Many of the new forums, such as the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, comprised the usual suspects: the United States and its industrialized allies.
The Clinton administration had good reasons for not doing more. Remaking international institutions is a thankless task that requires holders of power to voluntarily cede some of their influence. There was no urgent need to undertake it in the 1990s: China and India were rising, but their great-power status still seemed a long ways off. Even minor shifts in long-standing U.S. foreign policy -- such as the reduction of U.S. troops in Germany -- caused great controversy. Most important, the Clinton administration's reinforcement approach worked. The creation of the WTO strengthened the global trade regime. NATO led effective operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was renewed indefinitely. Despite the occasional gripe about American hyperpower, the United States seemed able to legitimately advance its interests through the adroit use of multilateral diplomacy. By and large, American hegemony went unchallenged.
These gains, however, came with hidden costs. Many of the rising powers believed that the existing global governance structures stacked the deck against them. The IMF's perceived highhandedness during the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s bred resentment across the Pacific Rim. New Delhi was frustrated by Washington's objections to its 1998 nuclear tests and grew tired of being viewed by Washington strictly through the prism of South Asian security. China resented the drawn-out negotiations to enter the WTO. And NATO's bombing of Kosovo was triply problematic for Beijing: the accidental hit on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade aroused nationalist passions, Washington's willingness to cross international borders to protect human rights clashed with Beijing's notion of state sovereignty, and the United States' decision to bypass the United Nations and act through NATO highlighted the limits of China's effective influence over world politics. Heading into the new millennium, the fastest-growing economies in the world were nursing grudges toward the United States.
THE NEW DEAL
The Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks has triggered an avalanche of books about how to rethink U.S. grand strategy. Most of them, pointing to the chaos in Iraq and setbacks in the war on terrorism, condemn the Bush administration's penchant for bellicose unilateralism and assert that a better way is possible. Given the administration's rejection of multilateralism in the context of the Biological Weapons Convention, the Geneva Conventions, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, this criticism is well grounded.
But the analysis is incomplete -- even though the rhetorical excesses of former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld make it easy to think otherwise. Myriad reasons explain Washington's recent outreach to emerging powers and its concomitant effort to revamp global governance. In part, changes in personnel motivated this shift: it is no coincidence, for example, that most of these outreach efforts have taken place since Condoleezza Rice became secretary of state and have accelerated since Henry Paulson became secretary of the Treasury. In part, change has been foisted on the administration from the outside world. As Philip Gordon, of the Brookings Institution, pointed out in Foreign Affairs last year, failure in Iraq rendered neoconservatism an unsustainable strategy.
But in part, the effort to institutionalize a new great-power concert has been a long-standing component of the Bush administration's foreign policy. And Washington-style multilateralism is above all a means to further U.S. goals. Accordingly, the Bush administration defers to institutions it sees as being effective (say, the WTO) and has consistently sought the enforcement of multilateral norms and decisions it deems important (be they IMF lending agreements or UN Security Council resolutions). But it scorns multilateral institutions that fail to live up to their own stated standards (such as other UN bodies). The 2006 National Security Strategy reiterates Washington's dual position by arguing that great-power consensus "must be supported by appropriate institutions, regional and global, to make cooperation more permanent, effective, and wide-reaching. Where existing institutions can be reformed to meet new challenges, we, along with our partners, must reform them. Where appropriate institutions do not exist, we, along with our partners, must create them."
Global institutions cease to be appropriate when the allocation of decision-making authority within them no longer corresponds to the distribution of power -- and that is precisely the situation today. The UN Security Council is one obvious example; the G-7 is an even more egregious one. The G-7 states took it upon themselves to manage global macroeconomic imbalances in the 1970s. They were moderately successful at the job during the 1980s, when they accounted for half of the world's economic activity. Today, however, even when they meet with Russia (as the G-8), they cannot be effective without including in their deliberations the economic heavyweight that is China.
Incorporating emerging powers while placating status quo states is no simple feat. But the task should appear less daunting when it is understood that success will benefit ascendant states as much as it will the United States. It will bring ascendant states recognition and legitimacy to match their new power. Granted, they will have to accept a multilateral order built on U.S. principles. But they -- especially China and India -- have grown phenomenally by doing just that. Now that they are concerned with sustaining their current high rates of economic growth, emerging powers share some interests with the United States on issues such as the security of energy supplies and the prevention of global pandemics.
ONE-ON-ONE
The Bush team has already made significant efforts to keep up with the changing world. A few years ago, it started to reallocate resources within the U.S. government. More recently, it has spearheaded multilateral efforts to integrate China and India into important international regimes.
The Defense Department was the first U.S. bureaucracy to make major changes to reflect the new new world order. It started by moving around U.S. troops stationed abroad. In 2004, more than 250,000 troops were based in 45 countries, half of them in Germany and South Korea, the battlegrounds of the Cold War. To improve troop mobility in the face of ever-changing threats, President Bush announced in August 2004 that the number of U.S. armed forces stationed overseas would be reduced and that 35 percent of U.S. bases abroad would be closed by 2014. Many of these troops will be based in the United States, but others will be redeployed in countries on the periphery of the new zone of threat: in eastern Europe, in Central Asia, and along the Pacific Rim.
The State Department is also adjusting. In a January 2006 address at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Secretary of State Rice said, "In the twenty-first century, emerging nations like India and China and Brazil and Egypt and Indonesia and South Africa are increasingly shaping the course of history. ... Our current global posture does not really reflect that fact. For instance, we have nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people, that we have in India, a country of one billion people. It is clear today that America must begin to reposition our diplomatic forces around the world ... to new critical posts for the twenty-first century." Rice announced that a hundred State Department employees would be moved from Europe to countries such as India and China by 2007.
Washington has also strengthened its bilateral relationships with China and India. After an awkward beginning -- the Bush team's first foreign policy crisis came when a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese jet fighter -- the Bush administration reoriented its approach to Beijing. "It is time to take our policy beyond opening doors to China's membership into the international system," then Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick announced in September 2005. "We need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder in that system" so that it will "work with us to sustain the international system that has enabled its success." The "responsible stakeholder" language has since become part of all official U.S. pronouncements on China, and the theory behind it has guided several initiatives. Last fall, Washington launched the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue. In December, Treasury Secretary Paulson led six cabinet-level U.S. officials and the chair of the Federal Reserve in two days of discussions with their Chinese counterparts on issues ranging from energy cooperation to financial services to exchange rates. On matters as diverse as dealing with North Korea and Darfur, reigniting the Doha Development Agenda, and consulting with the International Energy Agency, Washington has tried recently to bring China into the concert of great powers.
The United States has reached out to India as well. For most of the 1990s, the United States was primarily concerned with managing India's dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir and defusing potential nuclear crises. Even though Pakistan is a significant U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, the U.S.-Indian relationship has warmed considerably over the past five years. In November 2006, the U.S. Department of Commerce arranged its largest-ever economic development mission to India, expanding the commercial dialogue between the two countries. Last year, they also concluded a bilateral agreement to cooperate on civilian nuclear energy -- a de facto recognition by the United States that India is a nuclear power. The agreement reinforces India's commitment to nonproliferation norms in its civilian nuclear program, but it keeps India's military program outside the orbit of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Critics of the deal have warned that it threatens the NPT. But the Bush administration argues that India is emerging as a great power, the nuclear genie cannot be put back in the bottle, and because India is a democracy, the genie will do no harm. According to the 2006 National Security Strategy, "India now is poised to shoulder global obligations in cooperation with the United States in a way befitting a major power."
ALL-INCLUSIVE
More ambitiously, the Bush administration has tried to reshape international organizations to make them more accommodating to rising powers. In some instances, the changes have occurred almost as a matter of course. The formation of the G-20 bloc of developing countries, for example, compelled the United States to invite Brazil, India, and South Africa into the negotiating "green room" at the September 2003 WTO ministerial meeting of the Doha Round of trade talks, in Canc鷑. Since then, U.S. trade negotiators have been clamoring for greater participation from China in the hope that Beijing will moderate the views of more militant developing countries.
Similarly, the United States has encouraged China to participate periodically in the G-7 meetings of finance ministers and central-bank governors. Washington's aim is to recognize China's growing importance in world politics and economics and in return get Beijing to concede that its exchange-rate policies and its repression of domestic consumption contribute to global economic imbalances. Officials from Brazil, India, and South Africa have also been invited to G-7 meetings on occasion, on the theory that, as a recent paper from the Treasury Department argued, "addressing global [macroeconomic] imbalances requires engaging heavily with new actors outside the G-7."
Also with a view to giving greater influence to China (as well as Mexico, South Korea, and Turkey), the Bush administration has pushed hard to change the voting quotas within the IMF. China's formal quota grossly underrepresents the country's actual economic size. Timothy Adams, the undersecretary for international affairs at the Department of the Treasury, told The New York Times in August 2006 that "by re-engineering the IMF and giving China a bigger voice, China will have a greater sense of responsibility for the institution's mission." At a meeting in Singapore in the fall of 2006, the IMF's International Monetary and Financial Committee agreed to reallocate quotas to reflect shifts in the balance of economic power. Clay Lowery, the assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of the Treasury, restated Washington's position at the time: "We came to the view awhile ago that if we do not take action to recognize the growing role of emerging economies, the IMF will become less relevant and we will all be worse off." Washington also recently signaled its willingness to have China join the Inter-American Development Bank.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has moved toward greater cooperation with emerging powers on other issues as well, especially energy, the environment, and nuclear proliferation. Washington has engaged China through APEC's Energy Working Group. It has encouraged China and India, which are anxious to secure regular access to energy, to work with the International Energy Agency in order to create strategic petroleum reserves. It has launched, along with Australia, China, India, Japan, and South Korea, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate to facilitate energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable growth. (Because its members account for more than half of the global economy, the partnership has the potential to affect global warming more than does the Kyoto Protocol.) The United States has also relied on China and India to help halt nuclear proliferation. It is depending on Beijing to bring Pyongyang back into the six-party talks and to implement financial sanctions limiting North Korea's access to hard currency. In October 2006, following North Korea's nuclear test, for the first time China endorsed a UN Security Council resolution mandating sanctions against the regime. Similarly, Washington has relied on India's support for the United States' objections to Iran's nuclear program, as well as India's presence on the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in presenting its case against Tehran to the UN Security Council.
IN THE WAY
It is too soon to tell whether Washington's moves to bring Beijing and New Delhi into the great-power concert will succeed. Some U.S. initiatives have failed or yielded meager results. The IMF's initial internal reform has so far been modest: China's voting quota was increased from 2.98 percent to 3.72 percent. Reform of the UN Security Council has stalled because the proposals emanating from UN bodies themselves have seemed impractical and the key powers have not been able to agree on which countries merit permanent membership. One of the many stalemates paralyzing the Doha Round is the EU's refusal to further cut agricultural subsidies unless the G-20 countries agree to open access to their nonagricultural domestic markets. And opponents of the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal argue that the arrangement cannot be reconciled with Washington's hard-line stances against Iran and North Korea.
But skeptics should consider that such undertakings only bear fruit over time. Separate studies by Robert Lawrence and Iain Johnston, both professors at Harvard University, have shown that China's continued participation in international economic and security regimes have slowly, over many years, transformed Beijing from a revolutionary to a conservative status quo regime. The Strategic Economic Dialogue with China, which has received fair to middling reviews so far, has only just started. As with the Structural Impediments Initiative conducted with Japan over 15 years ago, which eventually opened up the Japanese market to U.S. retailers, progress with China will not come quickly.
Another difficulty is that rewriting the rules of existing institutions is a thorny undertaking. Power is a zero-sum game, and so any attempt to boost the standing of China, India, and other rising states within international organizations will cost other countries some of their influence in those forums. These prospective losers can be expected to stall or sabotage attempts at reform. Although European countries are still significant, their economic and demographic growth does not match that of either the emerging powers or the United States. Having been endowed with privileged positions in many key postwar institutions, European countries stand to lose the most in a redistribution of power favoring countries on the Pacific Rim. And since they effectively hold vetoes in many organizations, they can resist U.S.-led changes. The Europeans argue that they still count thanks to the EU, which lets them command a 25-member voting bloc in many institutions. But if the EU moves toward a common policy on foreign affairs and security, it will be worth asking why Brussels deserves 25 voices when the 50 states comprising the United States get only one.
Developing countries on the periphery of the global economy can be expected to back Europe in resisting U.S.-led reform efforts: they do not want to lose what little influence they have in multilateral institutions. Such resistance may be all the more common in the future because the Bush administration, having displayed a penchant for unilateralism in some matters, has elevated suspicions about its motives. Many countries are likely to view Washington's reform efforts as an opportunistic attempt to free itself from the strictures of preexisting multilateral arrangements. Moreover, rising anti-Americanism across the globe has made it harder for those governments willing to cooperate with the United States to do so.
The Bush administration faces obstacles at home, too. Some Democrats in Congress opposed the White House's initiative to give China greater influence within the IMF on the grounds that doing so meant rewarding an unfair player in the global economy; thanks to the 2006 midterm elections, this kind of opposition will now have an even louder voice. Exit polls showed strong support among voters for geopolitical realism and economic populism -- positions that could complicate efforts to rework global governance arrangements. On the one hand, Americans seem more likely to endorse any multilateral security initiative that would take some pressure off the overstretched and overburdened U.S. military; on the other hand, they seem primed to oppose the accommodation of rising economic powers.
IN OR OUT?
It may seem odd for the United States today to seek to disenfranchise its long-standing allies in Europe in order to reward governments that often have agendas that deviate from its own. But the alternative is even more disconcerting: if these countries are not integrated, they might go it alone and create international organizations that fundamentally clash with U.S. interests. In the past few years, fueled by anti-Americanism, dormant groups such as the Nonaligned Movement have found new life. If India and China are not made to feel like co-managers of the international system, they could make the future very uncomfortable for the United States. Nationalists in rising powers will be eager to exploit any policy fissures that may develop between their countries and the United States.
China, in particular, has already begun to create new institutional structures outside of the United States' reach. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, for example, which consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan (with India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as observers), has facilitated military and energy cooperation among its members, although still at a low level. At the SCO's June 2006 summit in Beijing, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed that the organization "ward off the threats of domineering powers to use their force against and interfere in the affairs of other states." The joint declaration issued at the end of the summit appeared to endorse this sentiment, noting that "differences in cultural traditions, political and social systems, values and models of development formed in the course of history should not be taken as pretexts to interfere in other countries' internal affairs."
China is also aggressively courting resource-rich countries. In October 2006, it hosted a summit with more than 40 leaders from Africa to ensure continued access to the energy-rich continent. And its leaders have proposed creating free-trade areas within the SCO and APEC -- displaying such willingness to go ahead that President Bush was forced to remove the global war on terrorism from the top of his APEC agenda, and in November 2006, he called for an APEC free-trade zone.
China's efforts do not necessarily conflict with U.S. interests, but they could if Beijing so desired. From a U.S. perspective, it would be preferable for China and India to advance their interests within U.S.-led global governance structures rather than outside of them. The United States could get something in return for accommodating these states in institutions such as the UN and the IMF and giving them the recognition and prestige they demand: a commitment by Beijing and New Delhi that they will accept the key rules of the global game.
The United States faces a challenging road ahead. European countries remain vital allies. On issues such as human rights and democracy promotion, Europe speaks with a powerful, constructive voice. Bringing China and India into the concert of great powers without alienating the EU or its members will require prodigious amounts of diplomatic will and skill. The Bush administration has gotten off to a solid start. As it proceeds, its task is simple to articulate but hard to execute: keep the United States' old friends close and its new friends closer.作者: 白鹤 时间: 2007-11-1 14:45
Bush's Mission Impo ssible
Despite growing opposition in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans, President Bush is calling for more troops to combat insurgents and more dollars to employe Iraqis in that violence-torn land. But Bush faces huge obstacles to success. In Congress, critics are scrambling to see what limits can be put on the fresh resources and the time allowed for them to work. As for the public, opinion polls show that a large majority of Americans doubt the tide can be turned or that U.S. security requires it.
There are three possible outcomes. Against all odds, the escalation could tame the insurgency enough to allow political and economic developments to stabilize Iraq. Or the surge could prove to be the last, unsuccessful effort before withdrawal of most U.S. troops, thus consigning the fate of Iraq to the Iraqis and their nervous neighbors. Or the Bush administration could struggle on inconclusively and leave the mess to the winner of the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
For several reasons, a pessimistic outcome is likely. The Bush plan cannot work as long as Iraq's Maliki government refuses to suppress Shia militias, not just Sunni ones, or make the political and economic compromises sought by moderate Sunnis. Prime Minister Maliki has pledged to cooperate with the Bush plan but his past behavior strongly suggests he is unable or unwilling to provide more than minimal help. He has not acted as a unity leader but rather as a Shia advocate, with questionable ties to Iran, and has given scant cause for Sunnis to trust him.
A second reason for scepticism is that the additional troops sought by Bush are nowhere near enough to pacify Baghdad in the opinion of counterinsurgency experts. And lastly, angry and disillusioned Iraqi factions are swelling the ranks of the insurgency. For their part, the insurgents have increased the effectiveness of their tactics and demonstrated an ability to wait out counter attacks, only to reappear when the coast is clear. Bush's new plan envisions a significantly diminished role for U.S. troops by late fall. Based on past performance, it is doubtful that the Iraqi army will be capable by then of providing adequate security.
Unless conditions in Iraq noticeably improve, Bush will lose his remaining leverage and will finish out his presidential term isolated and marginalized. As the 2008 elections draw near, division will grow sharper within Republican ranks between supporters and doubters of escalation. And Democratic presidential candidates will feel heat from the party's base to embrace a disengagement timetable.
Within Iraq, the Bush initiative may curtail some sectarian violence but only for awhile. The most realistic outlook is for civil strife between Shias and Sunnis to rage for a number of years until there is a clear winner, a compromise brought on by exhaustion or a break up of the country. Among Iraq's neighbors there is growing alarm over the potential for region-wide disruption. The Sunni states of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States worry most about Iran's drive to develop nuclear weapons capabilities, its funding of radical groups and its ambitions to dominate the region. In their eyes, Iran benefited the most from the war in Iraq and the United States suffered the greatest loss in power and influence. With Iraq in long term turmoil, the United States must work to contain the chaotic forces threatening stability throughout this oil-rich region. An essential ingredient will be an invigorated diplomacy, starting with renewed mediation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Security assistance, such as missile defenses for the Gulf states, is also a priority.
The most troubling problem is Iran's unabated push to arm itself with the capability of creating nuclear weapons at the same time that it is developing long range missiles. Given that Iran is a radical, Shia theocracy intent on supporting like-minded terrorist organizations, alarm bells are ringing in the neighborhood. The United States and Israel are insisting, so far without success, that Iran must be stopped from achieving the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons. And for their part, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are contemplating nuclear programs of their own in response to the Iranian threat. Clearly, the debacle in Iraq has undermined U.S.-led efforts to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions and to prevent destabilization of the region. In the year ahead, no more important crisis faces the United States.
I read the recent news about the Korean Peninsula. The Cabinet ministers and influential lawmakers of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party have made comments calling for debate on whether Japan should possess nuclear weapons, which is said to be triggered by the recent nuclear test by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Another comment is that Washington is deploying a squadron of stealth fighters to South Korea.
The politicians of Tokyo and Washington may argue that they take these moves to safeguard the stability of the region by deterring the potential threat from Pyongyang. However, from my point of view, such tit-to-tat moves could only contribute to the acceleration of tension caused by the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
Pyongyang, Tokyo and Washington may want to have more cards to play in the Six-Party Talks. But any misjudgement could result in a war that would hurt the peace and prosperity of the region.
What the related parties need to do urgently is to sit down now and talk to each other.
William Chan
Taipei
DPRK 'committed' to disarmament pact
BEIJING - North Korea is committed to a disarmament agreement reached in February but wants sanctions against it lifted first, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday on return from the country.
It was the International Atomic Energy Agency's first negotiations with North Korea in more than four years, even though IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei was told the North's top nuclear negotiator was too busy to meet him.
ElBaradei said the visit had been "quite useful" and had opened the way to a normal relationship. He said North Korea was positive about returning to IAEA membership, but wanted sanctions against it lifted.
"I think they were very clear that they are willing to implement the February 13 agreement once the other parties implement their part," he said, referring to an agreement reached at six-party talks grouping the two Koreas, Russia, Japan, the United States and host China.
"The DPRK (North Korea) mentioned that they are waiting for the lifting of sanctions with regard to the Macau bank."
Referring to the closure of the Yongbyon nuclear plant, he said: "They said they are ready, willing and capable of doing that as soon as the financial sanctions are lifted."
ElBaradei's visit was the first by the agency since late 2002, when North Korea expelled its inspectors as an earlier disarmament deal fell apart. It withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty days later.
Under the terms of the February agreement, the Yongbyon reactor, which makes plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons, must be shut by mid-April in return for an initial shipment of heavy fuel oil.
NO SIGN YET
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said earlier that North Korea had shown no signs of closing the reactor. North Korea tested its first nuclear device last October, drawing widespread condemnation and UN sanctions.
"There is no indication of a change in the operational condition of Yongbyon," Song told a news conference in Seoul.
Earlier this week, a US official said North Korea was preparing to shut down the Yongbyon complex, but other US officials have been more guarded.
The IAEA, which is trying to iron out the details of a return of its inspectors to North Korea, will be key to verifying whether the state makes good on its pledge.
In addition to Hill, South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo arrived for working-group meetings. Both envoys, along with China's Wu Dawei, will take part in discussions aimed at fleshing out parts of the agreement dealing with disarmament and energy.
Washington said that within 30 days of the February deal it would settle a dispute over North Korean bank accounts frozen in Macau that Washington says had been used to launder illegal earnings for Pyongyang.
"The Macau issue will be resolved as we've promised," Hill told reporters.
As part of the give-and-take to settle the dispute, the US Treasury Department would bar US banks from doing business with the Macau bank, which would allow Macau authorities to decide whether to release some of the frozen accounts, Washington officials told Reuters.
But releasing the funds could take weeks and the US restrictions will continue to hinder North Korea's access to the international financial system, potentially irritating Pyongayng and complicating denuclearization efforts.
Western diplomats said they expected no immediate progress and warned that the whole process of North Korea establishing relations with the IAEA or bringing back inspectors into North Korea would need time.
"North Korea wants to show that they are in the driving seat. They want to drive home the point that they are on eye level when it comes to these negotiations," one diplomat in Vienna said.
US, DPRK open historic talks in NY
Updated: 2007-03-07 07:06
The United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have begun landmark talks on establishing diplomatic relations, but a US State Department official cautioned against high expectations.
DPRK Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan and US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met for 4 hours on Monday for talks and dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. They left without making any comments to reporters.
Kim and Hill were to meet again yesterday amid rising expectations of improved US relations with a country that US President George W. Bush called part of an "axis of evil" five years ago, along with Iran and pre-war Iraq.
This is the first US visit by Kim, Pyongyang's top nuclear negotiator, since the international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions flared in late 2002.
Under an agreement reached at the Six-Party Talks on the North's nuclear program, which also involved China, Russia, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan, the US and the DPRK are supposed to open bilateral talks on establishing diplomatic ties.
The DPRK, which tested a nuclear weapon in October, agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor by mid-April as a step toward abandoning its nuclear program in exchange for aid.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described this week's meetings as organizational, focused on setting up an agenda.
"I think that he (Hill) will talk to them about how the process might proceed regarding normalization," McCormack said, including taking the DPRK off the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and opening the way for a normal trading relationship with the US for the first time.
Last month's deal has touched off strong criticism in Washington, especially among conservatives, who see it as rewarding the DPRK for years of "bad behavior".
Japan and the ROK, meanwhile, are also taking steps to improve relations with Pyongyang.
A senior aide to the ROK's president will visit the North this week, an official said yesterday.
The South's Yonhap news agency speculated that the purpose of the trip was to set up a summit with DPRK leader Kim Jong-il.
However ROK officials have denied that a top-level summit is in the works.
In Vietnam, meanwhile, envoys from Japan and the DPRK met yesterday, before two-day talks aimed at establishing relations and fulfilling pledges made in Beijing.
Japan and the DPRK have never had formal diplomatic ties.
"There was no difference between our views that (these are) the issues that must be addressed, and we agreed on the importance to discuss them thoroughly," Japan's chief envoy Koichi Haraguchi said after meeting with his DPRK counterpart, Song Il-ho.
The bilateral talks, scheduled for today and tomorrow in the Vietnamese capital, are the first between the two countries since the nuclear disarmament talks in Beijing in February.
The talks in Hanoi are aimed at establishing diplomatic relations and implementing an agreement made at the talks last month for the North to start dismantling its nuclear arsenal in return for energy aid and other incentives.
Japan, however, has refused to give energy aid to or normalize relations with the DPRK until Pyongyang clears up the issue of its abductions of Japanese citizens an emotional dispute that has divided the two countries.
"Japan will not restore diplomatic relations until the abductions issue is resolved," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters late yesterday.
North Korea admitted in 2002 that it abducted 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s to train spies.
What we've learned from latest nuclear crises
By Ruan Zongze (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-03-02 06:57
February saw dramatically good news and bad news for the world's nuclear crisis hot spots: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Iran.
On February 13, the Six-Party Talks on the Korean nuclear issue concluded with the signing of a joint document that was billed as a major breakthrough in the protracted heady process.
It jump-started the process to implement the September 19 Joint Communiqu, which spells out the steps toward actual denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
All parties committed to this endeavor have agreed to move forward with the principle of "action for action" at the initial stage, including the DPRK "shutting down and sealing" its key nuclear facility; other countries providing economic, energy and humanitarian aid to the DPRK; and establishing working groups to resolve the Korean nuclear issue and form a Northeast Asian peace and security mechanism to realize the aspirations expressed in the Joint Communiqu step by step.
On February 23, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said the DPRK government had invited him to visit Pyongyang.
The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the move a "good start" on the DPRK's part, saying he believed it would positively affect the implementation of the joint document.
The United States also welcomed the latest DPRK gesture, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying the US was happy with this development and thought it was a good signal. The DPRK's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan will discuss bilateral issues with his US counterpart this weekend in New York.
While the Korean nuclear issue finally took a positive turn, the Iran nuclear crisis appears heading for escalation.
On February 22, ElBaradei released a report on Iran's lack of compliance with relevant UN resolutions, saying Teheran not only ignored UN Resolution 1737 demanding the freezing of its nuclear program, but also stepped up its uranium enrichment efforts by adding several hundred more high-speed centrifuges to increase production capacity.
Ban also expressed his dismay, saying he was deeply troubled by Iran's failure to stop its uranium enrichment plan before the deadline set by the UN Security Council.
Iran says the goal of its nuclear program is self-reliance in related technology and it is at a critical stage in the current upgrading plan. That is Teheran's reason for going ahead despite worldwide calls for a halt to such steps as adding more high-speed centrifuges.
In fact, the pace of Iran's nuclear development has been picking up rather than slowing down since the adoption of UN Resolution 1737.
Iran regards its nuclear program as a key symbol of its resolve to regain major power status. Its dogged pursuit of this goal has experienced numerous ups and downs, resurfacing in different forms in different eras.
Iran's nuclear program is also a result of the changing world. During the Cold War, major power rivalry could be seen behind almost all international conflicts as many countries sought to protect their own interests by leaning on the US or the Soviet Union.
With the end of the Cold War, the medium-sized and small countries have had to face all kinds of challenges directly, especially in efforts to secure their national interests, as major power wrestling fizzled out. Some of them chose to build self-esteem by acquiring nuclear capability. At the same time, some countries' double standard on nuclear arms has also played a part in wrecking international non-proliferation efforts.
On February 24, US Vice-President Dick Cheney said that the US and its allies were willing to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program. But he also said "all options are on the table" for the US to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, indicating Washington would not rule out the possibility of using military force against Iran.
His words were enhanced by the presence of a US aircraft carrier battle group led by the USS John C. Stennis that arrived in the Persian Gulf on February 20. It joined the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group already deployed there.
At the same time as Cheney's remarks, US media reported that the Pentagon had formed a response group to deal with the Iran nuclear buildup to guarantee execution of a military attack against Iran within 24 hours of a presidential order.
Iran soon came back with something similar to US President George W. Bush's memorable phrase "Bring it on!"
According to Iranian press reports, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech on February 25 that Iran's nuclear development plan would never give way to Western pressure. Responding to Ahmadinejad's description of the plan as a runaway train with "no break and no reverse gear", Rice said Iran needed a stop button.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki claimed on another occasion that the US was not capable of launching military action against Iran at the moment.
The next step in US policy on Iran would be to exert more pressure on Teheran through political, economic and military means. Politically, the US would seek to pressure Iran by fanning international condemnation through such world bodies as the IAEA and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the 5+1 mechanism).
Economically, Washington would tighten financial sanctions against Iran to discourage foreign investment in the Islamic Republic in a bid to shake Iran's pillar energy industry.
And militarily, more movements of US forces would be seen around the Persian Gulf with occasional vocal threats to the tune of "all options are on the table". But by all indications the US is not ready to fire the first shot at this time.
On the other hand, the nuclear issue is but another excuse for the US to confront Iran more loudly. Washington has been repeatedly accusing Iran of interference in Iraqi internal affairs, saying an Iranian military elite force recently masterminded several bomb attacks in Iraq that killed 170 US soldiers.
The US also hopes to trigger changes in Iran and undermine Ahmadinejad's authority by increasing pressure on Teheran through international sanctions.
Washington has put aside special funds to support the so-called democrats in Iran as inside men against Ahmadinejad.
Both the Korean Peninsula and Iranian nuclear issues involve multiple conflicts of interest jostling for attention.
Yet the Korean nuclear crisis finally shows some hope of moving toward a peaceful solution. At least the military tension has been reduced significantly.
The improving Korean nuclear issue offers two factors worthy of consideration: One is to fully utilize the multi-party negotiation mechanism, as illustrated by the decisive role played by the Six-Party Talks to achieve the recent soft landing.
The Iranian nuclear issue involves the 5+1 mechanism, which differs from the Six-Party Talks. The DPRK is one of the six parties, whereas the 5+1 format does not include Iran. It is necessary to have Iran on board, but a lot of hard thinking is necessary to find the best way to turn 5+1 into 5+2.
The other factor is that close contact between the US and the DPRK played a key role in achieving the latest progress on the Korean nuclear issue. The US previously shied away from direct contacts with the DPRK, but facts have changed the administration's stance. The change shows that it is just as important to create the right conditions and atmosphere for the US and Iran to talk face to face.
To sum up, it is the willingness of all parties concerned to seek a solution through the Six-Party Talks channel that helped the process continue through so many twists and turns.
At a moment when both the US and Iran have raised the volume of war cries with the possibility of another war in the Persian Gulf, people are desperately hoping that political wisdom will turn the situation around before it's too late to bring peace back to the region.
Ruan Zongze is a researcher with the China International Studies Institute in Beijing
Six-party talks moving to possible agreement
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-02-10 08:39
Envoys to the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuke issue on Friday were examining a Chinese draft document that could see them take the first steps towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
"The chief negotiators had a practical and in-depth exchange of views on the first steps of implementing the joint statement," a statement of Chinese Foreign Ministry said at the end of Friday's session, without releasing more details.
Under the joint statement reached in September 2005, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) agreed to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees.
The talks entered the second day on Friday, with negotiators having a group meeting and a series of one-on-one talks.
They were said to comb through the draft looking for a possible agreement. The draft was said to be circulated to the delegates last night.
"The Chinese delegation circulated a draft, but we haven't had much discussion yet....it's a process that begins with discussion and moves to the written form," chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters Friday morning.
Reports said the draft agreement proposed stopping within two months work at nuclear sites in the DPRK, including the Yongbyon reactor, and supplying Pyongyang with alternative energy sources.
Later Friday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo held a banquet for the six top negotiators at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
"The facts show that the six-party talks are an effective mechanism to resolve the Korean Peninsula nuke issue," Dai said in his toast.
As long as all parties continue the talks in a spirit of sincerity and perseverance, the difficulties can be overcome, Dai said.
Hill said after the banquet that the parties were fairly close to a deal but sticking points remain.
"A couple of issues are sticking points, just one or two issues. That sounds pretty close to a deal," he said, adding these issues are "not broad issues, but pretty limited in fact".
"We will definitely get through the remaining issues and we will move along," Hill said with cautious optimism.
He had lunch with the DPRK delegation and Kim Kye-Gwan on Friday, in which "we looked ahead to the next phase."
Hill stressed that "we are not interested in freezing things but in shutting things down and continuing through various phases to shut down, dismantle, abandon things... we are interested in a kind of one-way process."
Japanese negotiator Kenichiro Sasae said there had been little prospect of an agreement so far.
"We made progress on some parts but on others we ran into difficulty. We will continue with the talks, but at this point in time I don't feel there is a prospect of reaching an agreement," Sasae said when he came back to the hotel Friday evening.
Im Sung Nam, an official from the Republic of Korea (ROK) delegation, said Friday evening the parties had reached consensus on parts of the draft, and some parts were still under discussion.
The six parties "have achieved consensus to a certain extent", Im said at a ROK press conference Friday evening.
He said Friday's consultation was sincere and pragmatic. The ROK and Chinese chief delegates had bilateral consultations in the afternoon. The ROK and DPRK chief delegates had a 30-minute talk. The ROK and U.S. top delegates are also maintaining contact.
However, another ROK official was more cautious about the prospects, saying anonymously that the consultations are more difficult than expected, and all sides still need to show wisdom and make further efforts.
After a 48-day recess, the negotiators gathered again in Beijing on Thursday to explore the first steps needed to implement the statement.
Prospect of six-party talks remains misty
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-12-22 09:19
BEIJING -- The prospect of the ongoing six-party talks on the Korean Peninsular nuke issue remained hazy although the talks are said to end on Friday.
The chief negotiators of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States held two rounds of one-on-one meetings on Thursday, the Chinese press center said, without releasing details of their talks.
The top U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, after a third straight day of one-on-one talks with his DPRK counterpart, said he had a "long and difficult" day.
"Today was not a day when we registered much progress. The talks are expected to end on Friday," he said.
Clearly dissatisfied with the DPRK's emphasis on the financial issue, Hill stressed that "it's time to talk the denuclearization and discuss the implementation of the joint statement" in September 2005.
Under the joint statement, the DPRK agreed to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees.
formally known as the second phase of the fifth round since 2003, the talks resumed on Monday after a 13-month suspension and involved China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Japan and Russia.
As the talks entered the fourth day on Thursday, a flurry of one-on-one negotiations were held in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
Host China also stepped up its diplomatic efforts on Thursday by holding direct meetings with the other five parties, aiming at narrowing down their differences.
Yet some envoys said there is little chance of breakthrough this week.
"The situation of the talks remains severe, and there is no prospect of breakthrough up to now," Japan's top negotiator Kenichiro Sasae told reporters in the hotel Thursday evening.
The DPRK "holds a very strong position on the financial issue, which is currently the biggest difficulty in the talks," Sasae said.
Financial sanction imposed on the DPRK was one of the key stumbling blocks that had stalled the six-party talks for the past 13 months.
On Thursday morning, U.S. treasury officials headed back to Washington after they held two rounds of talks with their DPRK counterparts on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Daniel Glaser, who was leading the U.S. treasury delegation, said the meetings were business-like and useful, but hinted that no progress came out of the financial talks.
Glaser said he might meet with the DPRK counterpart next month in New York.
"There is no point getting too pessimistic or optimistic each day," Hill said.
On Friday, Hill will meet again with the chief DPRK negotiator Kim Kye-gwan.
"We have to see whether tomorrow will be a better day," Hill said, adding he will leave Beijing Saturday morning.作者: 白鹤 时间: 2007-11-1 14:46
World powers agree on new Iran sanctions
(AP)
Updated: 2007-03-15 08:57
UNITED NATIONS - UN ambassadors from six world powers agreed in principle Wednesday on a proposed new package of sanctions against Iran and were expected to introduce a resolution to the Security Council on Thursday if their governments approve it, the US ambassador said
The package still needs to be considered by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council that haven't been part of the negotiations. However, an agreement by the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council and Germany would be a strong signal that the key nations on the UN's most powerful body want to send a united message to Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.
"We have an agreement in principle based on some additional changes that were introduced and presented today by some delegations," acting US Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said.
He said the new elements needed to be approved by government officials in each of the five countries that hold permanent council seats - the US, Russia, China, France and Britain. But he called it a "package approach" that "would be essentially the way forward in a resolution."
Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said "by and large it has been agreed."
He said some of the council members still want to double-check with their governments back home on details of the deal. "I assume as they double-check, they will get a positive response from the capitals, and they expect that this is going to be the case, too," he said.
In December, the Security Council voted unanimously to impose limited sanctions against Iran for its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment. It ordered all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs and to freeze assets of 10 key Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.
The council said it would consider further nonmilitary sanctions if Iran refused to suspend enrichment. Iran's response was to accelerate its enrichment program.
The modest package of new measures agreed to by the ambassadors of the six countries includes an embargo on Iranian arms exports and an asset freeze on more individuals and companies associated with Tehran's nuclear and missile programs, council diplomats said.
The new resolution would also call on all UN member states to exercise "vigilance and restraint" on arms imports and on the entry or transit through their territory of Iranians subject to the asset freeze, a council diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the text has not been circulated.
It would also call on governments to make no new commitments "of grants, financial assistance, or concesssional loans to the government of Iran," the diplomat said.作者: 白鹤 时间: 2007-11-1 14:46
North Korea's nukes
A month down, a month to go
Mar 13th 2007 | NEW YORK AND TOKYO
From Economist.com
Where is the tentative nuclear deal with North Korea going?
MOHAMED ELBARADEI gets all the cushy jobs. The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, on Tuesday March 13th, to discuss with his hosts the return of UN nuclear inspectors. The last lot were expelled just over five years ago, shortly before North Korea flounced out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb last year a tentative deal was struck in February with the five other parties interested in its nuclear activities (South Korea, Japan, China, America and Russia). That should allow the inspectors to go back in.
They are supposed to verify whether the hermit kingdom, as it agreed in February, shuts down its Yongbyon reactor by mid-April. If Mr ElBaradei’s team gets in and confirms that the off-switch has been pulled, the cautious February deal—which promised energy supplies, a normalisation of diplomatic ties with America and Japan, and other goodies in exchange for North Korea’s co-operation on the nuclear side—may be reckoned to have some substance. Eventually Yongbyon is supposed to be dismantled, something the UN inspectors would also be expected to verify.
One month into the 60 days allowed by the dealmakers for these steps to be taken, not all the signs are hopeful. As part of the six-party process, negotiators from North Korea and America met in New York last week to discuss bilateral relations. That seemed cordial enough. But a parallel gathering over two days between representatives from Japan and North Korea in Hanoi floundered almost immediately. Vietnam’s capital was considered to be a suitably neutral venue for the two antagonists. North Korea wants Japan to dismantle sanctions imposed after North Korea's missile and nuclear tests last year. For Japan, news about Japanese abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s is the pressing issue. On the first morning, Japan demanded the prompt return of a dozen abductees whose fate is unclear, and insisted that seven suspects thought responsible for the abductions be handed over for trial. The North Koreans said that the abduction issue had already been settled and—after a false start the next day—said there was no point in continuing talks. Thus North Korea now attempts to paint Japan as an obstacle to progress in the six-party forum, while it calls the side-discussions with the United States constructive.
Then there is the question of financial sanctions that have been hurting North Korea’s leaders. In February the American and North Korean envoys agreed to resolve the issue of frozen accounts in a Macau-based bank that, America says, North Korea used to launder money. An inquiry orded by the government of Macau claims there is no sign of money laundering in the bank, though the Americans continue to insist they have evidence. America wants to be convinced that the bank has cleaned up its act; it would be embarrassing if it turns out that the laundering claims are false.
What Mr ElBaradei himself achieves may not become clear for some days. America’s envoy, Christopher Hill, arrives in Beijing later this week and may meet the IAEA boss there. Another round of six-party talks is supposed to kick off on March 19th in Beijing, after a flurry of diplomatic “working group” meetings in which the South Koreans are to look at how to provide aid and energy across the border and the Chinese are to chair talks on how—eventually—to clear away nuclear weapons from North Korea.
Even if this part of the process goes forward as planned, there will be many more opportunities for it to be destabilised. Decades of mistrust and broken promises have made all sides extremely prickly by this point. Just inching forward, not getting stuck or going into reverse, will be a real achievement.作者: 白鹤 时间: 2007-11-1 14:46
What's behind increase in the military budget
By Xu Guangyu
Updated: 2007-03-15 06:39
At the Fifth Session of the 10th National People's Congress, it was announced that the country's military budget for 2007 is 350.92 billion yuan, or roughly US$44.94 billion. This marks a 17.8 per cent increase over the previous year, or $6.8 billion.
The increase has drawn wide attention from the international community. Many express misgivings out of shear misunderstanding. But some look at the increase through stained lenses or stretch the matter to suit their own ends. Others try to use the growth in China's military spending to create a propaganda splash.
A famous Chinese saying goes: "Seeking truth after facts." There is a similar saying in the West: "Facts speak louder than words." These two sayings apply to evaluating China's military spending increase.
I would like to offer my point of view in the hope of clearing away misunderstanding.
First comes the question: Why the increase by the unprecedented wide margin of 17.8 percent?
The growth is primarily caused by the sharp increase in the wages, living expenses and pensions of 2.3 million People's Liberation Army officers, civilian personnel, soldiers and army retirees. The pay rise came in the latter half of 2006.
Large numbers of officers from battalion level down and non-commissioned officers received the sharpest pay rise 100 percent.
These people constitute the backbone of the military forces, directly involved in leading soldiers in military duties, training programs and logistical activities. On the personal side, they are the primary source of income for their families. Over a long period of time, their wages have remained very modest.
In view of all this, it is imperative to raise their pay by large margins.
The pay of the officers from the regimental level up, civilian personnel and army retirees has also been increased by 80 percent.
At the same time, all rank-and-file soldiers' living allowances and board expenses have also been increased.
The composition of the Chinese military expenditure is roughly the same as that of the United States. Wages, housing and services take up almost one-third of the total spending.
Take 2006. These categories of expenditure stood at $12 billion, within the total $38.1 billion. Of this $12 billion, $8 billion went to wages, living costs and pensions.
With the rise in these budget by an average of 60 percent in 2007, the total increase in these categories reaches $4.8 billion. This accounts for the lion's share in the growth of 2007's total military spending.
Of course, spending on hardware research and development and weapons procurement has also increased. And the money spent on training and exercises and on maintaining military activities has risen, too. But this kind of spending growth pales beside the increase in personnel expenditures.
It is unlikely that military personnel wages will go up by large margins every year. So, the possibility is extremely low that the country's military spending will increase dramatically in the coming years.
There is another question: Does China's military expenditure outstrip its actual needs now that the 2007 Chinese military budget has surpassed Japan's $42 billion and Germany's $37.5? It still trails Britain's $62.38 billion and France's US$50.78 billion. It is a fraction of the United States' $532.8 billion,
China's military spending falls far behind that of many other countries, whether in terms of actual amount, military personnel per capita expenditure, or the general population per capita military spending.
The country's military budget ranks fourth among the world countries and its GDP also stands fourth in the world. Coincidence? Maybe. I think the two No 4 positions are logically connected to each other.
China is a big country. The military is, therefore, obligated with overwhelmingly heavy tasks in defending the country. To compound this, the country is threatened by separatism, terrorism and hegemonism. In view of all this, China's sizable military spending is totally justified.
My latest research shows that a country would find it hard to achieve military modernization when military personnel per capita spending remains below $100,000.
The US military's per capita budget in 2007, for instance, is $383,000, the highest in the world. Next comes Britain ($324,000), followed by Japan ($175,000), Germany ($148,000) and France ($146,000).
In contrast, China's per capita spending on its soldiers is only US$19,540. The country has set a rather moderately paced timetable by today's international standards to modernize its military forces. Extending to 2050, it covers three stages: from 2006 to 2010, from 2010 to 2020, and from 2020 to 2050.
It is predicted that, during these three phases of military modernization, China's military budget will increase moderately each year to keep up with the country's economic development and its defense needs. This is aimed at closing the wide military strength gaps between the country and the world's military powers.
Does China's military expenditure outstrip its actual defense needs? Facts constitute the best gauge.
Western military analysts are very clear that Chinese fleets, air force, ground troops and strategic rocket forces are on a secondary tier with the world's leading military powers in terms of quality and quantity of its core battle equipment.
The basic facts and stark reality determine that it is impossible for China to enter an arms race with the world's military powers. Most important of all, China's State strategy and military strategy are geared to peaceful development and active defense.
The ultimate goal is to build a harmonious society inside the country and a world in harmony outside. So the country needs no military expansion or a strategy designed for military interference overseas. China has no military bases overseas and the country has never launched pre-emptive attacks against others.
By all measures, Chinese military expenditure is still very humble.
The author is a council member of China Arms Control and Disarmament Association