When U.S. government leaders attacked China for the latter’s duplicity in connection with the Cheonan incident, the Chinese leadership counterattacked the United States for its hypocrisy by citing the U.S.’s “willful blindness” in dealing with Israel’s commando raid on a Gaza flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea.

To many outside observers, including specialists and ordinary people all over the world, it is a conundrum that the United States acts like a protector over Israel while China does the same in its relations with North Korea. One thing is clear: Both the U.S.-Israel relationship and the China-North Korea relationship are similar in many respects, but it is difficult to characterize them. It is important to find out why the United States and China side with Israel and North Korea, respectively, when the latter two get mired in serious disputes and conflicts with their respective historical enemies: Palestine (and the Arab states) and South Korea. Otherwise, it will be difficult to find a peaceful solution to either the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Korean conflict.

The U.S.-Israel relationship is similar to the China-North Korea relationship; The Arab-Israeli relationship affects the U.S.-Israel relationship while the South-North Korea relationship does have the same impact on the China-North Korea relationship. In concrete terms, the United States tries to mediate the Arab-Israel conflict taking a “neutral” position but it sides with Israel when it believes that Israel’s vital interests are undermined. The same can be said about China’s behavior in relation to the South -North Korea conflict.

There is also a striking similarity between the reasons for their oscillating behavior.

Historically, the United States supported Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. However, there has been a division within the foreign policy establishment and among the people: The advocates for a neutral position and the pro-Israeli position. The former group maintains that for strategic and economic reasons (specifically, Middle East oil), the United States should not antagonize the Arab world and destabilize the Middle East by supporting Israel.

However, throughout the post-World War II period, the U.S. policy has been basically pro-Israel with some minor fluctuations such as Eisenhower’s neutral position in the 1956 Suez Canal crisis and Carter’s firm demand for the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. The United States has treated Israel as a de facto ally and included it in their non-NATO allies in 1989. Public opinion has been also fluctuating around the mid-point. However, the incumbent government has rarely been dominated by the neutral or pro-Arab elements.

Many observers, American and foreign, believe that Jewish influence in the American government is very strong. Because of this pro-Israeli policy, the Arab people have become strongly anti-American. In this situation, the United States is caught in a dilemma: Its strategy to counter the anti-American forces through the U.S.-Israeli alliance strengthens these forces. They resort to any means to defeat the U.S.-Israeli alliance, including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

China suffers from a similar dilemma. It established diplomatic relations with North Korea immediately after it seized power in 1949, fought with North Korea during the Korean War and concluded a military alliance in 1961. Throughout the post-World War II period, they have always emphasized a lip-tooth relationship, even after China established diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992.

Since the cold war was over, China has been ostensibly pursuing an equidistance policy toward the two Koreas, but it has never abandoned the alliance relationship with North Korea. The pro-North Korea group in the Chinese leadership is still strong, although it is not so influential as the Jewish lobby in the United States. Just as in the case of the U.S.-Israel relationship, so China pursues a strategy to counter great power influence in the Korean peninsula through the Chinese-North Korean alliance.

But it is caught in a dilemma: It antagonizes the United States and Japan as well as South Korea. It tries to calm this rising antagonism by maintaining that China’s protective policy toward North Korea is to preserve the status quo and ultimately to prevent another Korean war. Just as the United States tries to assuage the Arab world that it makes every effort to preserve peace and security in the Middle East and prevent the nuclearization of the Middle East for this purpose, so does China tries to persuade the United States and South Korea to restrain themselves from seeking a military solution.

But this is argument is self-contradictory as the U.S. argument. Just as the United States cannot convince the Arab world of the denuclearization of the Middle East without denuclearization of Israel, so cannot China persuade the other parties concerned of its double standard policy toward the Korean peninsula.

By Park Sang-seek

Park Sang-seek is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University. ― Ed.　

코리아해럴드/2010년 8월 8일