After HK handover hype, what about Korean Peninsula?

By Edward Neilan

TOKYO (JP): After the hype and hoopla of the Hong Kong handover and the farcical "G-8" summit in Denver the preceding week, it is prudent to ask in the name of perspective "What about Korea?"

Finally there is the announcement that four party talks among North Korea, South Korea, China and the United States will begin in New York Aug. 5.

But before that, Korea had been absent from the world's attention for too many weeks as eyes were on the Hong Kong spectacle of 6.3 million people going under Communist government control without so much as a vote. Earlier the Denver summit had a blatantly racist veneer with only Japan representing the world's most dynamic region of East Asia, heightened by the inexplicable entry of Russia to a club supposed to be made up of "industrialized democracies."

Two lingering thoughts about the Hong Kong handover circus:

* Why so much fuss? Will a similar celebration be held when the new century opens or when Korea is unified? The answer is probably that everyone is so concerned about China's emerging power role in the world that there has been a global hypnotizing effect.

* Predictably, China used the occasion to try and implant the notion "Taiwan is next" after Macau's return in 1999. Overcoming this syndrome will be Taipei's greatest diplomatic and public relations challenge of the next few years. The world must recognize that Taiwan "needs more space" to operate to everyone's benefit.

I am reassured that we don't need to worry too much about Hong Kong. Despite being saddled with all this heavy symbolism, Hong Kong people have the collective instinct and capability to keep moving forward. The major worry is Beijing and the leadership there, mainly the military.

But let's get back to Korea.

Of the many books now on the market employing the les guerres imaginaires technique of hypothesizing coming wars, the best is The Next War, (By Caspar Weinberger and Peter Schweizer, Regenery Publishing, Inc. New York, 1996). It is in the tradition of Hector C. Bywater's Great Pacific War which prophesied the 1941 Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor and the course of the war far ahead of events.

Weinberger, secretary of defense in the administration of former President Ronald Reagan, is not an alarmist but rather a sober strategist and scholar in making his predictions.

He sees increasing American military weaknesses leading to another Korean War in which the U.S. again takes on China and North Korea in 1998. Failure to build-up and modernize leaves the U.S. in a position of being "compelled to negotiate an unfavorable agreement because of the shortcomings in our armed forces."

The book discusses computer simulations conducted by the U.S. Naval War College in 1994 and the Central Intelligence Agency in 1995 which predict that war between the United States and China in 2005 will lead to probable victory for Beijing.

The tone of the book is to alert leaders to prepare so that the worst cases do not happen. As the parties sit down in New York to discuss a Korea settlement in early August, there is the spectacle of a strong United States, strengthened China, weakened North Korea and strong South Korea. There are inherent strains in such an imbalance.

History suggests any negotiations will be long and frustrating and that China will be a key factor.

The writer is a Tokyo-based veteran analyst of Northeast Asian affairs and a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institutions, Stanford University.