The North Korean nuclear saga highlights the growing political clout of China and Russia and the parallel waning of US power in international politics, writes Gamal Nkrumah The concept of zugzwang, when in chess a player's next move courts calamity, might be an apt term to describe the predicament the United States finds itself in as far as the North Korean nuclear crisis is concerned. America's forced climb-down at the United Nations Security Council has undoubtedly changed the prevailing political dynamics of the world body. On Saturday, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning North Korea's recent nuclear weapons testing. US President George W Bush had earlier threatened punitive military action. The UN resolution, however, fell far short of what the Bush administration officials had originally had in mind. The UN resolution ruled out the use of force in what is widely seen as a special concession to China and Russia. US officials predictably played down the international political ramifications. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of US hegemony over world affairs, the US has been snubbed at the UN, failing miserably to have its way. The North Korean move was received with disdain in Washington. "It is the contemporary equivalent of Nikita Khrushchev's pounding his shoe on the desk," opined a far from amused US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, in reference to the eccentric Soviet leader who protested thus at the UN General Assembly in 1960. Having abjectly had to abandon its scheme to teach Pyongyang a lesson, largely because of the combined intervention of China and Russia, Washington was forced to adopt what Chinese Ambassador to the UN Wang Guangya described as a "watered down" resolution. Indeed, the Chinese openly declared that they would not participate in inspections of North Korean cargo. The issue of cargo inspections was a sticking point in Security Council deliberations over the North Korean nuclear crisis. The Pax Americana now has a broken back. The North Koreans say the ball is in Washington's court. It was the US, Pyongyang officials note, which in 1957 placed nuclear tipped Matador missiles in South Korea directed at North Korea. True, successive US administrations later removed hundreds of nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, but the US military threat to North Korea remains as real as ever. President of Pyongyang's Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly Kim Yong-Nam warned that North Korea would be forced to take further "physical steps" -- presumably additional nuclear tests -- "if the US continues to take a hostile attitude and apply pressure on us in various forms". In 2003, Washington launched the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) aimed at interdicting weapons from North Korea. In September 2005, the US imposed financial sanctions against Pyongyang. "The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy towards our country," Yong-Nam stressed. He also noted: "We cannot attend the six-party talks while various sanctions, including financial sanctions, are imposed on our country." Numerous unknowns and countless uncertainties cloud the present. Pyongyang demands direct talks with Washington. Bilateral talks, however, were ruled out by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who was on a tour of Northeast Asia were she held talks with officials in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo. Washington wants to change the direction of Korean history, yet its petulant impetuses hinder rather than help North Koreans to speed up the process of political reform. North Korea is for all intents and purposes the world's last Stalinist state. Russia and especially China may not have yet adopted Western-style democracy, but in both states private property and personal freedom are established concepts compared to North Korea. The latter's allied neighbours may be authoritarian but they are not totalitarian like Pyongyang. Even so, it is not the business of the US to propel the pace of democratisation around the world. The US used the canard of democratisation to justify its invasion of Iraq with disastrous consequences. There should be no repeat of that folly. Countries concerned with the North Korean nuclear crisis should work for the "prevention of a further escalation of tension", Russia's Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin aptly put it. For China and Russia caution extends to the imposition of economic and trade sanctions on North Korea. They believe a stringently enforced economic embargo on North Korea could further destabilise the entire northeast Asian region. UNICEF, the UN child agency, pleaded that UN member states carry out a "child impact assessment" of sanctions on North Korea to "avoid a negative impact on children". South Korea, meanwhile, said that it would not terminate cross-border economic and tourism projects and joint ventures. South Korea and China are North Korea's most important trading partners. Washington does have its allies. Japan, for one, is terrified of the ramifications of North Korea's aggressive policy. Tokyo believes that Japan would likely be the first victim of a North Korean nuclear attack. And after all, North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world with 1.2 million men and women in arms. Japan has banned the entry of North Korean goods such as much-prized clams, matsutake mushrooms and coal which constitute the main North Korean exports to Japan. Tokyo has also halted a brisk trade in second hand bicycles, trucks and electrical and household utensils with North Korea. In a unilateral move, Tokyo suspended food aid to North Korea and banned ferry services between the two countries. Japan has likewise imposed a strict travel ban on North Korean nationals. It is outside of the northeast Asian region, however, that the North Korean nuclear saga has its greatest impact. The political fallout of Washington's tactical retreat at the UN over how to handle the North Koreans spells doom for the unipolar post- Cold War world dominated by a single superpower, simultaneously brightening the prospects of less conspicuous powers like China and Russia having a stronger say in global affairs.
