Is Fareed Zakaria too rosy on China?
Fareed Zakaria believes that China has begun to shift its North Korea policy. Obama administration officials tell Zakaria that Beijing is increasingly exasperated with the North’s behavior. One key piece of evidence that he cites is less than convincing however: China’s recent Security Council vote for new sanctions. Here’s how Zakaria describes it: The most ...
Fareed Zakaria believes that China has begun to shift its North Korea policy. Obama administration officials tell Zakaria that Beijing is increasingly exasperated with the North's behavior. One key piece of evidence that he cites is less than convincing however: China's recent Security Council vote for new sanctions. Here's how Zakaria describes it:
Fareed Zakaria believes that China has begun to shift its North Korea policy. Obama administration officials tell Zakaria that Beijing is increasingly exasperated with the North’s behavior. One key piece of evidence that he cites is less than convincing however: China’s recent Security Council vote for new sanctions. Here’s how Zakaria describes it:
The most important new development, however, is China’s attitude change. In a remarkable shift, China — which sustains its neighbor North Korea economically — helped draft and then voted last week for U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang.
Zakaria and the administration officials he’s talking to could be right, but China’s vote for UN sanctions certainly doesn’t make the case. In October 2006, Beijing backed Resolution 1718 imposing sanctions on the regime. At that meeting, China’s UN ambassador chastised North Korea for acting "flagrantly" and "supported the Security Council for making [a] firm and appropriate response." Then, in June 2009, China voted for Resolution 1874, which expanded existing sanctions. At the time, China’s representative chastised the North for its "disregard of the common objection of the international community." If China’s support of the latest round of sanctions is "the most important new development" in the relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang, then that relationship may not be changing much at all.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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