President Obama talks to our enemies, and it does not end well

President Obama, speaking at the G-8 summit recently, sounded very much like his predecessor, saying that “shying away from ugly facts on North Korea’s behavior is, in his words, “a bad habit we need to break.” I don’t know if the similarity should gratify or worry me more, or whether those two sentiments are really mutually exclusive.

The problem for President Obama is that China, Kim Jong Il’s financial backer and sponsor, is shielding North Korea from even the slightest imaginable consequence for sinking the Cheonan and murdering 46 of her crew, not counting those who died trying to rescue them. Apparently, a watered-down “presidential statement” from the U.N. Security Council is more than they can bear.

So our President — having himself just declined a perfect opportunity to at least put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism — is in fact sounding vaguely like John Bolton, who is, after all, the architect of two of the cornerstones of Obama’s North Korea policy today — the Proliferation Security Initiative and UNSCR 1718. But thank goodness Bolton himself is no longer in a place of real influence or consequence, because he said nasty things to people, and Smart Diplomacy means you mustn’t say nasty things:

U.S. President Barack Obama criticized China, Sunday (local time), for turning a blind eye to North Korea’s belligerent behavior, saying Beijing should recognize Pyongyang’s torpedo attack on the South Korean Navy ship Cheonan in March.

In blunt comments at the end of the Group of 20 Summit here, Obama said that Chinese President Hu Jintao should recognize that North Korea crossed a line in that incident, in which 46 sailors died.

“I think there’s a difference between restraint and willful blindness” by China to the North’s military provocation, Obama said, answering questions from reporters.

It’s not quite “axis of evil,” but it’s still shockingly truthful.

“Now, I’m sympathetic to the fact that North Korea is on China’s border. They have a security interest in not seeing complete chaos on the Korean Peninsula, or a collapse that could end up having a significant impact on them.

“If they adopted a posture of restraint, I understand their thinking. But my hope is that President Hu will recognize that this is an example of Pyongyang going over the line in ways that just have to be spoken about, seriously,” he said.

The U.S. President indicated that he would link the Cheonan case to the resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, saying, “We are not going to be able to have serious negotiations with the North Koreans” if China fails to deal resolutely with the incident. [Korea Times]

Now China, for its part, is a newly matured emerging world power, so it responded with characteristic class and restraint:

The English-language Global Times hit back at the US leader, saying he should have taken Beijing’s concerns into consideration before “making irresponsible and flippant remarks about China’s role in the region”.

The Global Times being the Chinese equivalent of the Volkische Beobachter.

The newspaper, noting Beijing’s role as host of the on-off six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, said: “It is thus not China that is turning a blind eye to what North Korea has done and has not done.”

“Instead, it is the leaders of countries such as the US that are turning a blind eye on purpose to China’s efforts,” said the commentary in the paper, which is run by the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily. [AFP]

Now, if I were a Korean, I’d be even more concerned about this statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry:

Asked about those comments, Chinese foreign-ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news briefing on Tuesday: “China borders on the Korean peninsula, and we have our own feeling on the issue, different from that of the countries tens of thousands miles away.¦We have more direct and intense concerns.” [Wall Street Journal, Brian Spegele]

Translation: The Korean Peninsula is within our sphere of influence, not yours.

You know, it astonishes me endlessly how similar this President’s policies and behavior are to those of the last one, except for those lucid moments when I realize that we’re really in the third Clinton Administration. The only thing that astonishes me more is total polarity reversal in the reaction of the news media, the Human Rights Industry, and the Foreign Policy Industry to each president’s actions. Even the schizophrenia is the same. Honestly, calculating the trajectory of this administration’s policy is a lot like it was during the days of Bush’s 2001 “policy review,” and pretty much ever since.

On a related note, the President reminds us that the concepts of speaking softly and carrying a big stick are each sold separately, so now, we’re about to have dueling naval exercises with the Chinese, too:

In response to the sinking of the Cheonan in March, in which 46 sailors died, the U.S. is planning joint naval exercises with South Korea designed to signal strong support for its ally. China, North Korea’s chief international supporter, has condemned the exercises as destabilizing to the region.

A U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday that the drills could take place next month. U.S. Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis said the drills weren’t meant to intimidate China or destabilize the region, but “are designed to ensure we have the ability to maintain peace and defeat aggression on the Korean peninsula.”

China has announced it will conduct its own drills in the East China Sea beginning Wednesday. Chinese state media have suggested those exercises are a direct response to the planned U.S. operations. Mr. Qin denied this, saying the Chinese drills have “nothing to do with the situation on the Korean peninsula.” [WSJ]

China insists, of course, that its exercise isn’t directed at us in any way.

Far be it for me to criticize this President for finally grasping that the ChiComs’ support for North Korea is cynical and malicious, or at least for not pretending otherwise. It’s just that I’m not sure how having a public argument with China advances us toward our goal of leaving it face-saving room to execute a policy shift, even if I happen to believe it’s going to take a good deal of quiet coercion to achieve that goal. For now, either China still doesn’t “get” that sinking a South Korean warship isn’t business usual, or it has concluded that President Obama doesn’t have the spine to do anything about it but bitch. I’m not against a little strategic bitching public diplomacy, but it’s going to take more than bitching to change policy in Beijing.

Let me posit, humbly, that it would be far more effective to publish some innocuous notices in the Federal Register about a couple of Chinese mining companies whose assets are about to be frozen for their “investments” in North Korea. And then, for good measure, we could quietly let the Chinese know that we’ll be actively destabilizing North Korea both economically and politically until China makes an immediate good faith effort to bring its regime to heel with a complete (and if necessary, prolonged) closure of its border with the North. We might even let a few more refugees into our consulates in China. We all know by now that China doesn’t want the chaos and refugees along its border. If we want to change China’s behavior, we should leverage that fear and link it to China’s support for Kim Jong Il.