в гостях у акул Уолл-стрита
Wall Street Journal напечатал мою статью-колонку о китайско-северокорейско-южнокорейских делах. Несколько нарушая законы копирайта, выкладываю её здесь. Акулы Уолл-стрита, ИМХО, простят, так как аудитория ЖЖ и аудитория Wall Street Journal, скажем так, несколько отличаются и по численности, и по влиятельности. Так что - не будет им, акулам, с этого ущербу.
NORTHERN SPOILS
January 30, 2008 The Wall Street Journal, page 13
By Andrei Lankov
SEOUL-South Korea’s president-elect Lee Myung-bak will take office next month, and many observers expect him to take a tougher line with North Korea. But Mr. Lee’s hawkish campaign rhetoric may not translate into tough action after he enters the Blue House. To understand one reason why, look no further than the South’s competition with China for the North’s economic spoils.
Since 2002, China’s investment in North Korea has accelerated rapidly. Today, China is the North’s biggest trading partner, accounting for about half of the North’s foreign trade. In 2006, China-North Korea trade reached $1.65 billion, surpassing the country’s trade with South Korea, at $1.35 billion.
Most Chinese investments are in small businesses, given that the North doesn’t boast any big, global companies. Economically, North Korea is a wasteland where-apart from cheap labor-only two sectors are of interest to foreigners: mineral resources and transportation infrastructure. In both areas, Chinese companies are very active.
In 2005 China acquired mining rights in a number of sites, including Musan, home to East Asia’s largest deposits of iron ore. Last year, a Chinese company-reports vary on which one-acquired a 51% stake in the North’s largest copper mine, in Hyesan. Over the last three to four years, Chinese companies have acquired mining rights to nearly all the North’s significant mineral deposits.
The Chinese government has good economic rationale to back-or at the very least, encourage-such ventures. Since northeastern Chinese provinces such as Jilin and Heilongjiang are landlocked, easy access to the port facilities on North Korea’s eastern coast could cut transportation costs. But currently, accessing those ports requires seemingly endless paperwork and involves using facilities built in the 1930s, problems compounded by slow land access via bad roads. In 2005 the Jilin local government started negotiations to renovate Rajin port, on North Korea’s north-east coast, a few dozen kilometers from Chinese border. The company also proposes to build a road connecting the port with the Chinese border.
China also has strategic reasons to prop up the North Korean regime. Were the North’s government to collapse, China’s border provinces would likely be subject to huge refugee flows. Nor would Beijing welcome the presence of the American military throughout a unified Korean peninsula.
This approach dovetails nicely with the wishes of North Korea’s elite, who also benefit from stability. Were the North to reunify with the South, most of the North’s elites would lose their perquisites, and might be subject to prosecution for their human right atrocities. These people welcome Chinese backing as a way to support their crumbling state. In case of a serious political disruption, they are likely to side with China, as a pro-Chinese regime would probably leave them in power.
At present, South Korea can do little to change these dynamics. South Korean businesses in the North are kept under constant surveillance and have to operate in ghetto-like enclaves. Chinese businessmen, by contrast, operate almost unfettered and can deal directly with local North Korean bureaucrats. This situation has created anxiety among Seoul’s political class, who fear China’s increasing economic clout could give Beijing more influence in Pyongyang.
In this environment, Mr. Lee’s new government could view investment in the North-including aid programs-as a way to counterbalance China’s growing presence. But this is a flawed approach. It only provides Pyongyang with even more opportunities to use the rivalries between their neighbors to squeeze from them more aid without giving anything in return and avoiding internal reforms. Until Seoul can change the incentives in Beijing, its aid to the North will only serve to prop up a brutal regime akin to Stalin’s Soviet Union (формулировка про Сталина не моя, а вставлена редакцией. Я слегка возразил, но вяло. В общем, верно, конечно, хотя я бы упомянул других тоаврищей, Мао - в первую голову - АЛ).
South Korean public opinion is shifting on the issue. Until recently, the South’s popular press treated China kindly, targeting Japan or the United States for regular nationalist outbursts. Now China, long seen as merely a huge market for South Korean exporters and investors, is re-emerging in the popular imagination as a dangerous imperialist predator whose actions might constitute a threat to Korean interests-at least in regard to the North.
It remains to be seen whether China’s increasing economic ties with the North will galvanize South Korea’s government into taking a more active, realistic stance on how to deal with North Korea. Mr. Lee talked tough on the campaign trail. Whether he can follow through or not will have important consequences for the future security of the Korean peninsula.
Mr. Lankov is an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.
NORTHERN SPOILS
January 30, 2008 The Wall Street Journal, page 13
By Andrei Lankov
SEOUL-South Korea’s president-elect Lee Myung-bak will take office next month, and many observers expect him to take a tougher line with North Korea. But Mr. Lee’s hawkish campaign rhetoric may not translate into tough action after he enters the Blue House. To understand one reason why, look no further than the South’s competition with China for the North’s economic spoils.
Since 2002, China’s investment in North Korea has accelerated rapidly. Today, China is the North’s biggest trading partner, accounting for about half of the North’s foreign trade. In 2006, China-North Korea trade reached $1.65 billion, surpassing the country’s trade with South Korea, at $1.35 billion.
Most Chinese investments are in small businesses, given that the North doesn’t boast any big, global companies. Economically, North Korea is a wasteland where-apart from cheap labor-only two sectors are of interest to foreigners: mineral resources and transportation infrastructure. In both areas, Chinese companies are very active.
In 2005 China acquired mining rights in a number of sites, including Musan, home to East Asia’s largest deposits of iron ore. Last year, a Chinese company-reports vary on which one-acquired a 51% stake in the North’s largest copper mine, in Hyesan. Over the last three to four years, Chinese companies have acquired mining rights to nearly all the North’s significant mineral deposits.
The Chinese government has good economic rationale to back-or at the very least, encourage-such ventures. Since northeastern Chinese provinces such as Jilin and Heilongjiang are landlocked, easy access to the port facilities on North Korea’s eastern coast could cut transportation costs. But currently, accessing those ports requires seemingly endless paperwork and involves using facilities built in the 1930s, problems compounded by slow land access via bad roads. In 2005 the Jilin local government started negotiations to renovate Rajin port, on North Korea’s north-east coast, a few dozen kilometers from Chinese border. The company also proposes to build a road connecting the port with the Chinese border.
China also has strategic reasons to prop up the North Korean regime. Were the North’s government to collapse, China’s border provinces would likely be subject to huge refugee flows. Nor would Beijing welcome the presence of the American military throughout a unified Korean peninsula.
This approach dovetails nicely with the wishes of North Korea’s elite, who also benefit from stability. Were the North to reunify with the South, most of the North’s elites would lose their perquisites, and might be subject to prosecution for their human right atrocities. These people welcome Chinese backing as a way to support their crumbling state. In case of a serious political disruption, they are likely to side with China, as a pro-Chinese regime would probably leave them in power.
At present, South Korea can do little to change these dynamics. South Korean businesses in the North are kept under constant surveillance and have to operate in ghetto-like enclaves. Chinese businessmen, by contrast, operate almost unfettered and can deal directly with local North Korean bureaucrats. This situation has created anxiety among Seoul’s political class, who fear China’s increasing economic clout could give Beijing more influence in Pyongyang.
In this environment, Mr. Lee’s new government could view investment in the North-including aid programs-as a way to counterbalance China’s growing presence. But this is a flawed approach. It only provides Pyongyang with even more opportunities to use the rivalries between their neighbors to squeeze from them more aid without giving anything in return and avoiding internal reforms. Until Seoul can change the incentives in Beijing, its aid to the North will only serve to prop up a brutal regime akin to Stalin’s Soviet Union (формулировка про Сталина не моя, а вставлена редакцией. Я слегка возразил, но вяло. В общем, верно, конечно, хотя я бы упомянул других тоаврищей, Мао - в первую голову - АЛ).
South Korean public opinion is shifting on the issue. Until recently, the South’s popular press treated China kindly, targeting Japan or the United States for regular nationalist outbursts. Now China, long seen as merely a huge market for South Korean exporters and investors, is re-emerging in the popular imagination as a dangerous imperialist predator whose actions might constitute a threat to Korean interests-at least in regard to the North.
It remains to be seen whether China’s increasing economic ties with the North will galvanize South Korea’s government into taking a more active, realistic stance on how to deal with North Korea. Mr. Lee talked tough on the campaign trail. Whether he can follow through or not will have important consequences for the future security of the Korean peninsula.
Mr. Lankov is an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.