Movie buffs surely remember this scene from Shane: Joe Wilson, the hired gun played
by a malevolent Jack Palance, goads pint-sized but big mouth Stonewall Torrey
into a gun-fight. Knowing he has little
chance to win yet unwilling to back down, Torrey bravely goes for his gun; Wilson
easily outdraws him, cracks a smile and then shoots him down.
For some reason, as Kim Jong-Un
and Trump have escalated their war of words, I haven’t been able to get this
scene out of my mind, as I see a number of parallels.
For one, the US are much more
powerful than North Korea, yet until recently had let the latter have a free
hand on its nuclear armament, and a succession of Kims have threatened to
incinerate Seoul and its population every time the US tried to force its denuclearization.
The US now seem determined to
force the issue, and Kim Jong-Un, like Torrey, is loathe to back down and
increasingly desperate as he contemplates the situation. Like Wilson, Trump looks like he enjoys
pushing and pushing Kim, sardonically smiling at his opponent’s mounting worries.
Finally, like Wilson, the US don’t
really want Kim Jong-Un to (politically) survive the showdown, as they and Kim know
that his reign of terror can’t survive a massive and public backing-down.
Of course, Shane is a movie and one can’t push the
comparison with a real crisis too far.
But as it masterfully depicts human aspirations and quarrels, high and
low, it can serve as an effective allegory of a real conflict. In particular, I believe that both the US and
NK realize that, for the current crisis to result in an effective agreement
(including the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula), Kim Jong-Un is unlikely
to be a party to it.
I expect that China must
realize that as well. In the end, it
will have to decide between (1) letting NK keep its nukes and ICBMs and risking
US military action, (2) Japan rearming and nuclear weapons returning to South
Korea if the US don’t take military action, and (3) helping manage a government
change in North Korea and the denuclearization of the peninsula. None of these outcomes are what China would
like.
The 19th Congress
of its communist party is less than a month away. Assuming President Xi achieves what he wants
there, will he feel strong enough to then try and solve what is, under any
circumstance, a dangerous situation?
Will the US provide him with the necessary assurances to jointly design
and implement a lasting solution to the NK crisis? We should know in a couple of months. Until then, the pressure on Kim will keep
rising.
