South Korea reels as US backpedals

Image via WikipediaPeter Lee

The United States failed to organize a vigorous international backlash against North Korea for its apparent sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan, and has now exhibited disconcerting second thoughts about its own response.

In an atmosphere of open Chinese opposition and discrete Russian reservations, the United Nations Security Council failed to condemn the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Instead, the president of the UN Security Council issued a letter that deplored the sinking but did not identify North Korea as the culprit, let alone stipulate any sanctions.

It now appears that the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will come up with nothing stronger than the Security Council statement, and South Korea has indicated it may abandon the effort to extract any kind of meaningful condemnation from the regional grouping.

Joint US-ROK naval exercises, designed to build on UN condemnation with a massive show of united force and resolve, have instead turned into an embarrassing fizzle.

Initial plans for the exercises targeted the Yellow Sea between China and the Korean Peninsula and promised the intimidating presence of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The reports aroused a barrage of official criticism and popular anger inside China. In response, the expected location began to drift eastward, first toward the south of the peninsula and now into the oceans between the east coast of Korea and Japan.

The most recent report is that the US will, with Solomonic wisdom, split the difference in a dual-sea exercise, with the George Washington and three destroyers in the east and a face-saving smaller exercise in the west.

China, which as recently as two weeks ago looked to be facing an intransigent united front of the US, South Korea and Japan, received an unexpected gift thanks to this American muddling: an alliance showing distinct signs of dismay, demoralization and division.

South Korea, which for a time expected to ride the Cheonan crisis to a heightened global profile and recognition as the key US security partner in Asia - and be in a position to leverage Western support in the event of a North Korean security crisis triggered by Kim Jong-il's death - instead found itself shunted to the side as the two superpowers, China and the United States, once again dispose of the affairs of the Korean Peninsula between them. More...