Colonialism, Borders and Justice Should Be in Our Conversation About Migration Former colonial powers,

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Monday, April 30, 2018

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Global Justice Now

Former colonial powers, like Britain, are culpable in promoting the unfair rules, creating debt burdens, forced privatisations and entrenching oppressive neo-colonial power dynamics on the international stage.

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Dorothy Grace Guerrero

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"Despite their contributions to British society as workers, many migrants are made to feel unwanted, viewed with suspicion, exploited and discriminated against." (Public Domain)

Despite the end of historical colonialism - brought about by successful struggles for independence and liberation by former colonial territories in the South and their establishment of post-colonial governments - the nature of North-South relations did not entirely change. In many cases, the domination of the South by former colonial powers that built their wealth and power through oppressive and exploitative relations with their former colonies merely changed in form and in degree. The political, economic, cultural and other fundamentals of the North’s power over their former colonies persists. This interplay of continuity and change is extremely complex, pervasive and contradictory.

The great African leader and first president of the Republic of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, first used the concept of neo-colonialism in his book to describe the condition of continuing economic domination by former colonial powers over their former subjects once they attain their status as politically independent countries. If we look at the vast powers of transnational corporations (TNCs), which remained after the foreign governments and occupying troops left, one could argue that the mode of colonial domination in this revised form continues.

Although there are Universal Declarations of human rights and other normative standards now, in practice, the people of colours - their bodies as well as their environment - are seen as lower in ranking, to be exploited and valued less by those who oppress them. Boaventura de Sousa Santos argued that the new forms of colonialism are more insidious in that “they take place at the very heart of social, economic and political relations that are dominated by the ideologies of anti-racism, universal human rights, equality of all people before the law, non-discrimination, and equal dignity for the children of every god or goddess”.

If we look at multilateral and bilateral trade and economic formations, like in free trade agreements or in current problem-solving processes, like in the climate negotiations, many southern leaders and non-state actors argue that the relations could be likened to a re-subordination of the South. Decisions and adopted measures, decisions to act or failures to act, seem to have the objective of keeping the dominance of the rich North and strengthening the elites in the former colonies. This is more stark when we also look at how the dominant trade, investment, and financial regimes are propping up corporate interests.

Transnational corporations as new empires

Since the 1980s, the rules brought about by various multilateral and bilateral trade and investment agreements, as well as the policies from international financial institutions from which domestic industrial policies in developing (former colonial) countries were patterned, promote and protect private sector investments. The dominant concepts of development, modernity and democracy are being used to serve the interests of transnational corporations (TNCs).

The raft of regulations that cover production of food and goods, labour conditions and relations, provision of services, natural resources and commercialisation of knowledge through intellectual property rights allows TNCs to operate with impunity over the lives and rights of people in the areas where they operate. They also have greater power than other social sectors and get a greater proportion of society’s wealth, while paying fewer of the costs and bearing less of the risk. Because of this, many view TNCs now as new empires.

Neoliberal trade, investment and financial rules gave them access and licenses to exploit lands, waters and forests globally and are given much leeway to do what they want with them. Frontline communities in the countries of the South constantly suffer from abusive operations of TNCs that are aggressively extracting the wealth, to the point of destruction and in effect the dispossession, of their resources. The poor from rural areas turn into economic refugees and exploited workers (or unemployed people) in the cities. This flow of displaced people, many of whom have no other option but to sell their labour power cheaply, is not just incidental but is actually vital for capital accumulation at the global scale. Those who are more daring, have more skills and money (or, perhaps, who have little left to lose) cross oceans and borders as migrants.

The weakness and non-enforcement of global labour standards, the continuing wage differentials between rich and poor countries, and the poverty created by the loss of opportunities for sustainable and genuine development in the South are the biggest causes of global economic migration. At the same time, the necessity of preserving lives is producing refugees fleeing areas of war and conflict.

Former colonial powers, like Britain, are culpable in promoting the unfair rules, creating debt burdens, forced privatisations and entrenching oppressive neo-colonial power dynamics on the international stage. Neoliberalism, however, is not only impoverishing the South, there is also an enormous collapse in working and living conditions in countries of the North now that is also caused by subscription to neoliberal policies by Northern governments. The failure to understand and communicate these realities to the people whose standards of living are taking a dip is causing anti-migrant sentiments.

A hostile environment in the age of Brexit

Linking the root causes of poverty and inequality around the world: colonialism, imperialism and later, neoliberalism with the rise of migration must be part of the discussion on migration. Migrants do not come to the UK to avail themselves of health services from the NHS and other benefits, they come here to join family members or spouses, seek a better life and escape poverty back home or to preserve their life.

Despite their contributions to British society as workers, many migrants are made to feel unwanted, viewed with suspicion, exploited and discriminated against. It is a huge irony that while the UK representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights advocates for human rights and states the efforts by the UK government to support human rights defenders, the most vulnerable of people - the migrants and refugees - suffer from a hostile environment in the UK. The current treatment of the Windrush Generation, the British citizens from Britain’s former colonies, is one appalling example of the inhumane conditions suffered by people whose heritage came from countries that made Britain ‘great’. On one hand, Britain and British companies maintain neo-colonial relations with former colonies, while on the other hand, migrants from those countries who reside in Britain as migrants are treated badly.

© 2018 Global Justice Now

Dorothy Grace Guerrero is a policy and advocacy team manager for the UK-based Global Justice Now.

North Korea will merge time zones with South starting May 5

Published time: 30 Apr, 2018 01:30Edited time: 30 Apr, 2018 08:38

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A man walking past a clock shop is reflected on a glass wall at a electronics market in Seoul, South Korea, June 8, 2016. © Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters

North Korea will synchronize its time with South Korea as early as this week, Pyongyang announced on Monday. The North created its own time zone in 2015, turning back the clocks by 30 minutes to defy Japanese colonial legacy.

The decision to return to the same time is one of the many symbolic highlights of the historic Friday summit between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The state-run KCNA agency reported that Kim said it was a “painful wrench” for him to see the two clocks hanging above the negotiation table at ‘Peace Village’ in Panmunjeom showing a different time.

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‘He is my idol’: Duterte cheers N. Korea’s Kim despite branding him ‘maniac’ earlier

The gesture should pave the way for rapprochement between the North and the South, and serve as “the first practical step for national reconciliation and unity,” according to Kim, as cited by KCNA.

On Monday, North Korea’s Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the highest state body between the assembly’s sessions, voted to adopt a decree codifying the changes that will take effect on May 5.

At present, North Korea’s time is lagging 30 minutes behind that of South Korea. North Korea introduced its own “Pyongyang time” in August 2015 to mark the 70th anniversary of liberation from the Japanese rule. The time, which will be now shared by the two Koreas, was set by Japan, which ruled the peninsula from 1910 to 1945, to coincide with its own.

What Does ‘Denuclearization’ Mean in the Negotiations for an End to the Korean War?

by DAVE LINDORFF

Photo by PRONelo Hotsuma | CC BY 2.0

Media news reports and commentary as well as political statements coming out of Washington on the surprising blossoming of peace talks between North and South Korea tend to focus on the question of whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is really “serious” about eliminating his recently developed nuclear weapons arsenal, or whether he will just try to keep what he has while decrying US military threats to his regime.

Missing in all the verbiage has been any reporting on the long US history of nuclear weapons in South Korea, where the US still, 65 years after the end of fighting on the peninsula, maintains at least three military bases and 28,000 combat-ready troops.

That history includes the US keeping as many as 950 nuclear bombs and a variety of delivery systems — rockets, planes and even howitzers that fire nuclear shells — within miles of the North Korean border.

An excellent 2017 report by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, based upon publicly available Defense Department documents, gives detailed history of the basing of nuclear weapons — strategic and tactical — in South Korea during at least 33 years of the 65 years that the US and North Korea have been officially in a state of war. That report makes it clear that North Korea continues to have a bull’s eye on it for US Trident submarines patrolling the north Pacific, and for nuclear-capable aircraft based on Guam, Okinawa and possibly or potentially in Japan, where the US has a major naval base.

The report states that US nuclear weapons were finally fully removed from South Korea in 1991, on orders from then President George H. W. Bush, but discussions to return them took place on several occasions when tensions rose on the peninsula, including as recently as 2011 during the Obama administration.

In US reporting on the peace negotiations between North and South Korea, and in speculation about whether Kim Jong-un is “serious” about “giving up” his country’s nukes, there is typically a mention that while “denuclearization” for the US means Kim giving up his nukes, the term for Kim and North Korea might mean a demand that the US pull its troops from South Korea and shut its bases there.

As the New York Times put it in an article on Sunday [2]:

Nor has it clarified how it defines a ‘nuclear-free Korean Peninsula,’ and especially whether that means a withdrawal or significant reconfiguration of American troops based in South Korea, as it has demanded before.

Given the long history of US basing nuclear weapons in South Korea, it would be understandable for Kim to worry about leaving those troops there. What the US has in South Korea is not really meant to be a bulwark against another North Korean invasion. After all, given China’s enormous influence over what US American journalists have long called the “hermit kingdom,” any attack on the North on the South these days is highly unlikely. Besides, what in the final analysis would 28,000 troops do against an army of over one million, backed by China? Rather, the US has, since the Korean War Armistice in 1953, used its bases in South Korea as a platform for strategic threats against both China, the USSR and later, Russia. As long as those bases are there, maintained and operated by those 28,000 US troops, it is easy on short notice to move in nuclear-capable aircraft and ships that would put American nuclear weaponry on China’s and Russia’s doorsteps. Those bases also give the US the ability, should it wish, to bring in weapons that would threaten North Korea with either nuclear or non-nuclear obliteration on short notice (as witness the giant bombs the Pentagon was recently said to be moving within range of the North when Trump was threatening Kim with “fire and fury” just a few months back).

Kim, no doubt (who received an excellent education in Switzerland in his youth), has a lot of history in mind as he negotiates with the US. It’s a history of his country’s having been completely leveled during the Korean War, to the extent that towards the end of the conflict US bomber pilots were returning to Japan and other bases with full loads of bombs that they were emptying into the ocean for safety’s sake before landing, because they couldn’t find any targets to hit anymore. Every footbridge and two-story building in the North had been destroyed, along with the death of one-third of the population.

There’s also the history of the US invading and destroying countries whose leaders don’t kowtow properly to US demands, from Nicaragua, Grenada and Panama to Iraq, Libya and lately Syria. And Kim certainly also has Iran in mind, where an agreement was reached by six countries led by the US with the Iranian government under which Iran agreed to halt its processing of nuclear fuel, and to hand over to Russia all of its enriched uranium and plutonium, in return for a lifting of sanctions, only to have the next US president back out of lifting the sanctions, and then to threaten to back out of the agreement altogether, with an attack on Iran being raised as a possible option.

It would be truly shocking if, given all this history, Kim were to agree to simply get rid of the nuclear weapons and missiles his country has recently successfully developed while allowing the US to continue its military basing in and its operational control of the military of South Korea, all on a promise that the US would not attack the North anytime in the future.

US agreements these days are widely seen as not being worth much, and that is certain to be a concern for the Kim government as it negotiates with the US and confronts US demands that it give up its nuclear weapons.

Left unsaid in most US reporting on this situation is also the historical basis for the US having those bases in South Korea. It’s not a matter of South Korea being a staunch ally of the US and having invited the US to put troops there and to construct bases there. South Korea has no choice or say in the matter. The US, since the original 1950 UN Security Council Resolution authorizing a UN force to combat the North, has been the designated leader of the UN expeditionary forces in South Korea. As such, the Pentagon has retained control over the South Korean military and has a UN-sanctioned right to have troops occupying South Korean territory (with immunity from South Korean law). That’s why Trump was able to order the placing of highly controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile batteries in South Korea over the objections of both the South Korean people and the government of Moon Jae-in — missiles that would be of little or no use against any North Korean attack, but which actually threaten and target China, much like the anti-missile batteries that the US has installed in Eastern European countries which it continues to insist publicly are to defend against non-existent Iranian missiles, but which actually pose a deadly threat of a potential first strike against Russia.

A complication for the US is that if South Korea’s Moon and North Korea’s Kim, on their own, were to agree to sign a peace agreement, it would be difficult for the US to insist that a state of war still exists on the Korean peninsula. It would make a joke of the continued UN Security Council resolution that places the US military in charge of a UN-led security force there, and of any continuation of the US bases in South Korea.

Few Americans are aware of this, but there is a deep and fairly wide-spread resentment in South Korea, not just in the North, against the United States, which is widely seen as having installed and then backed, since the end of World War II, a series of brutal dictators in Seoul, and even of having signed off on the South Korean military’s slaughter of thousands of people following an uprising in the South Korean city of Kwangju against one of those dictators in 1980.

US troops, who are immune from South Korean law, are also widely resented there. Many South Koreans also resent their country’s being treated as a pawn in US relations with China and Russia. While there is a relatively small cohort of right wingers in South Korea who vehemently oppose any easing of relations with the Communist North, South Koreans I know in the US, like a majority of their compatriots in Korea, have been wildly excited by the recent reapprochment between the two long-divided halves of their nation.

My guess then is that this will be North Korea’s negotiating strategy: If Kim Jong-un cannot get the US to agree to sign a full peace agreement with his country that would include the removal of those US bases, and a multi-lateral agreement backed by China and Russia in which the US agrees not to again threaten to invade or topple the government of his country, he will hang onto his nukes as insurance policy against US attack, and will simply turn to President Moon Jae-in and try to work out a bi-lateral peace treaty.

Then, with his nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip still intact, he could rely on international pressure and pressure from the Seoul government, to force the US to shut its bases and leave South Korea.

The author was an Asia correspondent for Business Week magazine based out of that magazine’s Hong Kong bureau for five years (1992-7). He also lived in China for a year and a half and is fluent in Chinese.

Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/30/what-does-denuclearization-mean-in-the-negotiations-for-an-end-to-the-korean-war/

Crisis of Consciousness: Change and the Individual

by GRAHAM PEEBLES

Our society is besieged by a series of interconnected crises. Millions of people around the world know this and are crying out for change, for a different way of living, for justice, peace and freedom.

Political leaders, Prime Ministers, Presidents and the like, are apparently incapable of responding to these demands; they do not understand the depth of the anguish or the complex interconnected nature of the problems. Instead of presenting new possibilities and working for peace and social harmony, they do all they can to maintain the divisive status quo and act in accordance with the past. But life is not static, it cannot be contained within any ideology – religious, political/economic or social – all must change to accommodate the new. And ‘the new’ is now flooding our world, stimulating change, demanding response and accommodation.

The world and the individual are one; for substantive change to occur this basic fact must be acknowledged; responsibility for the world rests firmly with each and every one of us. If we are to heal the planet and create harmony in the world change is imperative, but it must first of all take place within the individual. Over the last 40 years or so a gentle, yet profound shift in attitudes has indeed been taking place within large numbers of people; the increased level of social-political participation and in many nations revolt against historical injustice and suppression testify to this development. Whist this is extremely positive, urgent and fundamental change is required if the many issues facing humanity are to be overcome and a new way of living set in motion.

What are the crises facing humanity: The environmental catastrophe and war – conventional and nuclear – global poverty, inequality, terrorism, the displacement of people, and, festering beneath all of these, the socio-economic systems under which we all live. These issues, and they are but the most pressing, are the effects of certain ideals and conditioned ways of thinking; they are the results of the underlying crisis, what we might term the Crisis in Consciousness, or the Crisis of Love. Not sentimental, emotional love, but love as a unifying force for liberation and change. Love as the Sword of Cleavage, as the exposer of all that is false, unjust and corrupt in our world.

‘Society’, large or small, is a reflection of the consciousness of those who constitute that society; it is formed by the values, relationships and behaviour consistently and predominantly expressed by the people within it. Such expressions are to a large degree the result of socio-psychological conditioning, poured into the minds of everyone from birth by parents and peers, friends and educators, the media and political propaganda. This conditioning pollutes the mind, distorts behaviour and creates a false sense of self. It colours every relationship and forms the corrupt foundations upon which our lives are set. From this polluted centre, filled as it is with selfishness, competition, nationalism and religious ideologies, action proceeds and the divisive pollution of the mind is externalized. Where there is division conflict follows, violent conflict or psychological conflict, community antagonism or regional disputes.

For lasting change to take place, for peace and justice to flower, we must do all we can to break free of this inhibiting conditioning and in so doing cease to add to the collective pollution. The instrument of release in this battle is awareness: Observation and awareness are synonymous. In choiceless observation there is awareness – awareness of the values, motives and ideals conditioning behaviour. In the light of such awareness, unconscious patterns are revealed, and through a process of non-engagement can, over time, be negated and allowed to fall away.

Realizing unity

Through competition, fear and ‘ism’s of all kinds we have divided life up; separated ourselves from the natural environment and from one another. The prevailing economic system encourages such divisions; individuals are forced to compete with one another, as are cities, regions and nations. Competition feeds notions of separation and nationalism, ‘America First’ and Brexit being two loud examples of countries, or certain factions within these countries, following a policy which they mistakenly believe to be in their nation’s interest, meaning their economic interest. Such divisions work against the natural order of things by strengthening the illusion of separation.

The natural environment is an integrated whole, humanity is One and an essential part of that whole; the realization of unity in human affairs however is dependent upon social justice, and this is impossible within the constraints of the current economic model, which is inherently unjust. Neo-Liberalism is a major source of the psychological and sociological conditioning which is polluting the mind and society; creative alternatives that challenge the orthodoxy, which proclaims ‘there is no alternative’, must be cultivated and explored.

New criteria need to be established for any alternative economic model; the acknowledgment that human need is universal and should be universally met, and that nobody ‘deserves’ to live a life of suffering and hardship simply because of their place and family of birth. Sharing is a key principle of the time; it must be placed at the heart of our lives and of any new socio-economic structures. Not just sharing of the natural ‘God-given’ resources of the world, but of space, ideas, knowledge and skills, all should be distributed based on need, not bought and sold based on wealth and power. The recognition that humanity is one is crucial in bringing about the needed transformation in consciousness; sharing flows quite naturally from the acknowledgment of this fact and by its expression encourages a shift in attitudes away from the individual towards the group, thus strengthening social cohesion and unity.

Sharing, justice and freedom are vibrant expressions of Love and the Crisis in Consciousness is itself the consequence of a Lack of Love. Like virtually every aspect of life, love has been perverted, distorted and trivialized. Love is not desire, it is not dependent on anything or anyone for it’s being: Love is the nature of life itself. Remove the psychological clutter and Love will shine forth, bringing clarity and lasting change, within the individual and by extension society.

More articles by:GRAHAM PEEBLES

Graham Peebles is a freelance writer. He can be reached at: graham@thecreatetrust.org  

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/27/crisis-of-consciousness-change-and-the-individual/

Trump Did NOT Convince Kim to Ditch His Nukes. China Did

MIKE WHITNEY •

Donald Trump thinks his “maximum pressure” campaign persuaded North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. But it’s a bunch of baloney. The reason Kim Jong-un is planning to denuclearize is because China adamantly opposes nuclear weapons on the peninsula. That’s the whole deal in a nutshell. China, who is North Korea’s biggest trading partner, gave Kim an ultimatum: Ditch the nukes or face long-term economic strangulation. Kim very wisely chose the former option, which is to say, he backed down.

The situation in North Korea is really quite bleak. Consider, for example, this recent piece in a United Nations periodical titled “The 5 most under-reported humanitarian crises that are happening right now”. Heading the list is this blurb on North Korea:

“….what has been drastically underreported in the last year is that unprecedented number of people who are going hungry. The UN estimates that 70 percent of the population, or 18 million people, are food-insecure and reliant on government aid. To make things worse, last year North Korea experienced its worst drought in 16 years, exacerbating an already dire food shortage. With tight control of its borders keeping out aid organizations and journalists, it’s almost impossible to capture how many are actually receiving the urgent food aid they need.” (U.N. Dispatch)

Unfortunately, famine and drought are just the tip of the iceberg. The economic sanctions have added a whole new layer to the North’s misery, in fact, they have brought the economy to its knees. Pyongyang might have been able to muddle through had Beijing not joined the international blockade, but once China agreed to participate, the North’s fate was sealed. In the last year, the DPRK’s currency has dropped precipitously, the country’s import-export trade has been slashed by half, and the battered economy has plunged into a deep slump. The problem is almost entirely attributable to China’s tightening sanctions regime which has effectively cut off the flow of capital and vital resources to the North. In order to grasp how overly dependent the DPRK is on China, take a look at this:

“Trade with China represents 57% of North Korea’s imports and 42% of its exports. …

In February 2017, China restricted all coal imports from North Korea until 2018. This is considered to be extremely harmful to the North Korean economy, as coal was the top export of the nation, and China was their top trading partner…

On 28 September 2017… China ordered all North Korean companies operating in China to cease operations within 120 days. By January 2018 customs statistics showed that trade between the two countries had fallen to the lowest level recorded.

Banking

On 7 May 2013, Bank of China, China’s biggest foreign exchange bank and other Chinese banks closed the account of North Korea’s main foreign exchange bank.

On 21 February 2016 China quietly ended financial support of North Korea without any media publicity. It is reported to be due to the fallout of relations between the two governments….”(Wikipedia)

China Sanctions Summary:

1. China destroyed the North’s import and export trade, including the North’s primary export, coal.
2. China shut down all the DPRK’s companies operating in China. (terminating the recycling of revenues back to the North.)
3. China cut off access to foreign banking. (and, thus, foreign investment)
4. China stopped providing any financial support for the North.

What other country could withstand this type of economic strangulation by its biggest trading partner?

None of this has anything to do with Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign which really had no effect onKim’s decision at all. Denuclearization is all China’s doing. China put a gun to Kim’s head and simply waited for him to cave in. Which he did. He very wisely chose the path of least resistance: Capitulation. The question is: What did Kim get in return?Before we answer that, we need to understand that China-DPRK relations have been strained for more than a year, dating back to early 2017 when China joined the US effort to impose sanctions on the North. The Korean News agency sharply rebuked China for its disloyalty saying, “(China) is dancing to the tune of the US while defending its hostile behavior with excuses that (the sanctions) were not meant to hurt the North Korean people, but to check its nuclear program.”

While the North’s anger is understandable, it’s worth pointing out that Beijing has always opposed Kim’s nuclear weapons programs, in fact, in 2016, (long before bilateral relations soured) China’s Foreign Minister openly condemned the DPRK’s behavior saying, “We strongly urge the DPRK side to remain committed to its denuclearization commitment, and stop taking any actions that would make the situation worse.”

The warning was followed a year later by joint sanctions aimed at forcing Kim to give up his nukes. To Beijing’s credit, the goal was never to punish or humiliate the North, but to strengthen regional security by reducing access to nuclear weapons. Bottom line: China has acted responsibly throughout.

In March 2018, Kim made an unannounced visit to General Secretary Xi Jinping in Beijing. Kim was given the red carpet treatment for four days while the two leaders huddled and worked out their strategy for denuclearization in the context of a broader economic revitalization program aimed at integrating the peninsula with the rest of the continent.Very little is known about the 4-day confab in Beijing, but it’s obvious that Kim was encouraged to normalize relations with his counterpart (Moon Jae-in) in the South based on a firm commitment to decommission his nuclear weapons. It is no coincidence that the meeting between the two leaders and Kim’s dramatic reversal in policy took place just weeks after Kim met with the Chinese Premier. Clearly, China was the driving force behind Kim’s decision.

Critics of process think the North is engaged in an elaborate hoax that will amount to nothing, but that is probably not the case. Keep in mind, it is Beijing that is calling the shots not Kim. If China wants Kim to abandon his nukes, that’s probably what he will do. Of course, Kim would not go along with Beijing’s demands if he thought he might be putting his country at risk of a preemptive attack by the United States. Nor would he give up his nukes if he thought he was going to wind up like Mummar Gaddafi who was savagely skewered after he succumbed to US demands to surrender his WMD.

So how did China manage to convince Kim that he had nothing to worry about?

This question has not yet been fully answered, but we have to assume that China (and perhaps Russia) provided assurances to Kim that his country would be defended if attacked by the United States. Such guarantees would not be unprecedented, in fact, in 2017 Beijing stated clearly that no unprovoked attack by the US on the DPRK would go unanswered. Here’s part of the statement which appeared in Chinese state media:

“China should make it clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral,” (but) “If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”

“China opposes both nuclear proliferation and war in the Korean Peninsula. It will not encourage any side to stir up military conflict, and will firmly resist any side which wants to change the status quo of the areas where China’s interests are concerned.”

Beijing must have allayed Kim’s fears or he never would have agreed to denuclearize. But now that he feels protected, Kim appears to be eager to reconcile with his new friends in the South. Here’s what he said on Friday:

“I look forward to making the most of this opportunity so that we have the chance to heal the wounds between the North and the South…. I came here to put an end to the history of confrontation as well as to work shoulder to shoulder with you to tackle the obstacles between us. I came with the confidence that a brighter future awaits us.”

Kim is serious. He wants to restart the peace process and restore economic ties with the South. He formalized his commitment by signing a document that called for “the prohibition of the use of force in any form against each other”, “an end to the war” and”complete denuclearization.” Also, both leaders are committed to the gradual economic integration of the North and South via vital infrastructure projects that will strengthen popular support for the (eventual) reunification of the country. The importance of this joint commitment cannot be overstated. Kim is not simply giving up his nukes to placate China or ease sanctions, he is taking the first step on a path towards “balanced economic growth and shared prosperity”. Item 6 in the Panmunjeom Declaration”, which Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in signed on Friday, lays it out in black and white:

“South and North Korea agreed to actively implement the projects previously agreed in the 2007 October 4 Declaration, in order to promote balanced economic growth and co-prosperity of the nation. As a first step, the two sides agreed to adopt practical steps towards the connection and modernization of the railways and roads on the eastern transportation corridor as well as between Seoul and Sinuiju for their utilization.”

The clause articulates the same vision for the future as an earlier integration plan that was drafted at the the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok on September 6-7, 2017. The meetings– which included North and South Korea, Japan, Russia and China– focused on drawing neighboring states into a common economic space with lowered trade barriers to promote development and prosperity. The strategy has been dubbed the Putin Plan and it is designed in a way that it can be easily linked to the Eurasian Union project and China’s strategic “Silk Road Economic Belt” project. The ultimate objective is to create a free-trade zone (“Greater Europe”)that extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

The plan is explained in greater detail in Gavan McCormick’s excellent article at The Asia-Pacific Journal titled “North Korea and a Rules-Based Order for the Indo-Pacific, East Asia, and the World”. The Putin Plan anticipates multiple Siberian oil and gas pipelines criss-crossing the two Koreas to railways and ports that are linked to Japan, China, the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“South Korea’s President Moon projected his understanding of this within the frame of what he called “Northeast Asia-plus,” which involved construction of “nine bridges of cooperation” (gas, railroads, ports, electricity, a northern sea route, shipbuilding, jobs, agriculture, and fisheries), embedding the Korean peninsula in the frame of the Russian and Chinese-led BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Shanghai Cooperation Organiziation (SCO) organizations, extending and consolidating those vast, China- and Russia-centred geo-political and economic groupings. Though billed as “economic,” and having no explicit “security” element, the Vladivostok conference was nevertheless one that would go a long way towards meeting North Korea’s security concerns and making redundant its nuclear and missile programs. …Unstated, but plainly crucial, North Korea would accept the security guarantee of the five (Japan included), refrain from any further nuclear or missile testing, shelve (“freeze”) its existing programs and gain its longed for “normalization” in the form of incorporation in regional groupings, the lifting of sanctions and normalized relations with its neighbor states, without surrender….

….Vladivostok might mark a first step towards a comprehensive, long overdue, post-Cold War re-think of regional relationships….” (“North Korea and a Rules-Based Order for the Indo-Pacific, East Asia, and the World”, Gavan McCormick, The Asia-Pacific Journal)

In my opinion, Kim Jong-un is prepared to liquidate his nuclear weapons stockpile in order to join this massive regional development project that will draw the continents closer together, create new centers of power and prosperity, undermine Washington’s self-aggrandizing “pivot to Asia” strategy, and strengthen a rules-based multi-polar world order that protects the sovereignty and rights of all its members. Thus, “denuclearization” conceals a tectonic shift in the global power structure.

Bravo, for that.

http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/trump-did-not-convince-kim-to-ditch-his-nukes-china-did/

The Iran Crisis Presents a Bigger Danger to Peace Than North Korea

PATRICK COCKBURN 

As a journalist, I have always dreaded reporting on meetings between world leaders billed as “historic” or “momentous” or just plain “significant”. Such pretensions are usually phoney or, even if something of interest really does happen, its importance is exaggerated or oversimplified.

But plus ca change is not always a safe slogan for the cautious reporter, because real change does occasionally take place and professional cynics are caught on the hop.

Watching the “historic” meeting between the leaders of North and South Koreaat the Panmunjom border crossing today – and listening to reporters bubbling over with excitement – it was difficult not to be captured by the enthusiastic mood.

But I recall similar meetings that were once billed as transforming the world for the better and are now largely forgotten. How many people remember the Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986, which once seemed so important? Then there was the famous handshake on the lawn of the White House between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat confirming a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993 that, whatever else happened, did not produce peace.

Rabin was assassinated two years later by a religious fanatic and Arafat died with his hopes for Palestinian self-determination in ruins. Sceptics who had argued that disparity in political and military strength between Israel and the Palestinians was too great for a real accord turned out to be right.

The meeting in Panmunjom feels as if it has got more substance, primarily because the balance of power between the two sides is more even: Kim has nuclear weapons and claims to have a ballistic missile which could reach the US. Their range and reliability may be exaggerated but nobody wants to find out the hard way. It is these intercontinental ballistic missiles which make Washington and the rest of the world take North Korea seriously as a state, though otherwise it is an insignificant, economically primitive, family dictatorship. Despite Kim’s pledge that he is seeking a denuclearised Korean peninsula, this is the last thing that is going to happen because he would be foolish to give up his only serious negotiating card. North Korea has a long track record of dangling nuclear concessions in front of its enemies only to snatch them back later.

This does not mean that serious things are not happening. Relations between North and South Korea are being normalised symbolically and, to a degree yet to be seen, in practice. There is to be a formal end to the Korean War replacing the 1953 armistice, an end to “hostile activities” between the two states, family reunification, road and rail links and joint sporting activities. Ritualistic propaganda broadcasts across the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) are to cease, though it would be interesting to know if they are also going to remove the minefields in the DMZ.

President Trump is claiming that it was his bellicose tweeting and harsh sanctions that forced Kim to negotiate. Maybe they had some impact, but there are limits to what sanctions can achieve against a dictator firmly in power (witness UN sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq between 1990 and 2003). Trump’s threats of “fire and fury” may or may not frighten the North Korean leader, but they certainly make US allies nervous and less willing to let their fate be unilaterally determined by an unpredictable and dysfunctional administration in Washington.

Compare the de-escalating crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons with the escalating one over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which Trump is likely to withdraw the US on 12 May. This brings us to the second international meeting this week, this time between Trump and French president Emmanuel Macron in Washington, which had plenty of artificial-sounding bonhomie, but not much else.

It was the worst type of state visit in which governments and the media are complicit in pretending that there is real amity and agreement. Kisses and handshakes were exchanged, and pictures of Trump removing a speck of dandruff from Macron’s jacket were beamed across the planet, as if they signified anything. Once commentators would use the sugary phrase “personal chemistry” to describe a non-existent warmth between leaders, though this is being replaced by “personal rapport” which is a little less offensive.

Strong emotional bonds between Trump and other human beings seem unlikely to me, given his manic self-obsession. He resembles an eighteenth century monarch presiding over a court in which there is an ever-changing array of courtiers, who are powerful one day only to be abruptly dismissed the next.

Some US commentators have found reasons why the two men should get along. I particularly like a tweet by “The Discourse Lover”, who writes sarcastically: “I actually bet Trump and Macron get along great – Trump is the exact type of vulgar, acquisitive simpleton that French people assume all Americans are, Macron is the exact type of preening, arrogant creep that Americans assume all French people are.”

Macron did not have any illusions that his “personal rapport” was getting him anywhere when it came to Iran. He confirmed that Trump will most likely kill the Iran nuclear deal “for domestic reasons” and will impose “very tough sanctions” on Iran. Angela Merkel is in Washington today and will see Trump, but is equally unlikely to change his position on Iran or anything else.

The Iran crisis is truly dangerous in a way that was never quite true of the North Korea crisis. In Korea, we are talking of a peace agreement that would replace the Panmunjom Armistice of 1953, but there has been no war going on there for 65 years, though there have been a few sporadic clashes. Compare this with the position of Iran which is a rival for influence with the US in a ferocious war in Syria and one that in Iraq that is currently receding, but could easily blaze up again.

The crisis in relations between the US and Iran has been going on so long – essentially since the fall of the Shah in 1979 – that people may be self-immunised against reacting to its latest and most dangerous phase. Trump will be withdrawing from an agreement with which all signatories – US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China – agree that Iran is in compliance. The US will reimpose sanctions, which will be damaging to Iran, but not be as painful as those imposed before the 2015 deal, because this time round they will have much less international support.

Iran will inevitably resume all or part of the nuclear programme halted by the 2015 agreement since it will no longer receive any benefit from it. Trump may want a tougher deal but his own arbitrary actions have reduced the US diplomatic and economic leverage which he would need to obtain one. The Iranian leadership may respond cautiously to Trump’s demarche in order to isolate the US and draw out a crisis that weakens the Americans more than it does the Iranians.

Short of diplomatic options, the White House might view military action against Iran as an increasingly attractive approach. The Iran and North Korea crises are very different but in both cases Trump is behaving as if the US is turning into a stronger power when, thanks to his leadership, it is becoming a weaker one.

(Republished from The Independent by permission of author or representative)

http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/the-iran-crisis-presents-a-bigger-danger-to-peace-than-north-korea/