Talking Points: May 27 - June 10, 2009

Talking Points
May 27 - June 10, 2009

“The DPRK ignored universal opposition of the international community and once more conducted a nuclear test. The Chinese government is resolutely opposed to it.”
          Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement, May 25, 2009

The nuclear bomb North Korea exploded Sunday was much more powerful than one tested in 2006. In April, the North Koreans launched a rocket which they say carried the country’s first satellite into space and which other sources say was a failed two-stage missile. Tests of two shorter range missiles followed on Monday.

North Korea’s focus is on the United States. The regime wants the recognition such destructive weapons confer. It wants assurances that the U.S. will not use its military against it. The U.S., meanwhile, has long hoped that China would see North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a threat to regional stability (particularly that it could prompt Japan to develop its own weapons) and would use its influence on Pyongyang to halt its own program and to cease exporting nuclear technology. The Chinese government, for its part, sponsors the regional talks that focus on the North Korean nuclear development program. None of these governments has attained all that they hoped for, but China has benefited from being seen by the U.S. and its allies as the critical actor in this drama.

As in 2006, the Chinese government has accepted a UN Security Council resolution condemning the test. It remains to be seen if the U.S. and China will determine that halting North Korean nuclear weapons development is a shared interest, and work together to get North Korea to yield on its weapons program in exchange for energy development assistance and other aid.

“Hostile forces at home and abroad created this [spring’s] turmoil to overthrow the leadership of the CCP, subvert the socialist system, and turn China into a bourgeois republic and into an appendage of big Western capitalist powers once again.”
      Jiang Zemin, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary, marking the 40th
      anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, Sept. 29, 1989

Next week is the 20th anniversary of the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Beijing. Much has changed in China since 1989, but not the Party-State’s official description of the demonstrations as a threat that had to be crushed. Nor has the government become more accepting of open discussion of fundamental political change. China’s “great firewall” filters out information the regime considers damaging to the political and social order (such as discussion of the just published “secret journal”of Jiang’s toppled predecessor, Zhao Ziyang, who opposed sending in the tanks). Cyberpolice reinforce the self-censorship required of blog and bulletin board hosts. Dissidents are carefully monitored and their contacts restricted. At the same time, China’s leaders have pledged to address economic problems and to root out corrupt officials, two of the concerns that widened the appeal of the 1989 demonstrations initiated by students. Chinese cyberspace is full of lively discussion regarding complex topics.

The limits of such debate were starkly illustrated last December. Hundreds of prominent writers and others put forward “Charter 08.” The authors argue China must “embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system.” The Charter recognizes that life for many has improved dramatically and that the government has partially acknowledged the importance of human rights, even inserting the term into the Chinese constitution. But the authors charge that the authoritarian Party-State has resisted significant political change. They call for a constitution which provides for the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, direct election of officials, and freedom of speech, assembly, religion, private property ownership, and more.

Charter 08 was widely disseminated on the web, but in China filters and censors have largely caught up. The suppression wasn’t limited to cyber public spaces. One of the Charter’s authors, Liu Xiaobo, was detained and is still being held. Liu was a Beijing Normal University professor who spent 20 months in jail for his involvement in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.

The period around June 4 is always a sensitive one in Beijing. In this year of major anniversaries (the PRC’s 60th birthday party is October 1), the government has restored restrictions put in place to ensure a disruption-free Olympics.

On Saturday, President Barack Obama tapped USC alum and trustee Charles Bolden to head NASA. Bolden is a retired Marine General. He was a fighter pilot in Vietnam and was a NASA astronaut for 14 years, flying four space shuttle missions. Gen. Bolden earned a master of science degree in systems management at USC. He’s been a supporter of the US-China Institute since its inception and for several years he’s worked with his counterparts in China on a wide variety of topics, including space medicine.

Three years ago, Gen. Bolden told a Senate subcommittee that he thought “international engagement and cooperation in a common goal of furthering our understanding of this universe” was “one of the greatest benefits of human space exploration.” He argued that cooperation with Russia had yielded major benefits and that “[w]e have an opportunity to forge the same kind of alliance with the people of China…. As is a common practice in our military, peaceful engagement with potential adversaries frequently makes them long-term partners in pursuit of the common goal of international peace and stability.”

We wish Gen. Bolden well as he assumes command at NASA.

And we thank all those who write to us about Talking Points, about our website, and our magazine. Among the events introduced below is a presentation by Titus Chen, USC postdoctoral scholar, at UCLA. He will be speaking on how China has adapted to international norms. Cross-Taiwan Strait relations is the subject at a number of events including ones hosted at UC Irvine and in the Bay Area by the Asia Society. Details are below and in the calendar section of our website.

Best wishes,
The USC U.S.-China Institute
Support the institute at: http://www.usc.edu/giving/.

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