The Christian Science Monitor offers its view that the Obama administration’s recent announcement of additional sanctions targeting North Korea, as a response to the Cheonan incident, may in fact be part of a larger strategy toward China:
On Monday, President Obama gave his strongest response yet. He slapped tough economic sanctions on key players and institutions in Pyongyang, aimed at ending the country’s nuclear-weapons program and its export of nuclear material to other countries.
It was an unusually strong response from a US president who prefers talking over exerting pressure, and who wants the United States to focus on rebuilding its economy. But Mr. Obama was forced to act.
North Korea is not only more threatening to the region and the world with its new nuclear weapons and missiles, but its chief ally and economic supporter, China, did not even condemn the naval attack or admit that the North did it – despite clear evidence.
Obama’s new sanctions were likely aimed at Beijing as much as at the regime of Kim Jong-il. They may be part of a larger Obama strategy to stand up to China as it tries to dominate Asia with its expanding economic and naval might. The Korean Peninsula, as it was during the cold war, could once again become a proxy battleground for a larger struggle between China and the US.
See also Minxin Pei’s perspective in the Financial Times, “Obama is right to be hard-nosed on China.”
