Koguryo and real imperialism

A decent overview of the whole "China claims Koguryo as its own" flap here.

Some interesting points from the article, relevant to current events:

The Chinese may be laying the groundwork to dispute the current border with North Korea and, if they find it to be in their interest, claim more territory, scholars say. They also argue that China is trying to head off any attempt by pockets of Korean speakers on the Chinese side of the border to eventually become part of a unified Korea.

"The Chinese are trying to use a novel claim on history as an insurance policy for the future of its border with Korea," said Yeo Ho-kyu, a historian at Seoul's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. "This is not the first time the Chinese have tried to do this. They did the same thing before they claimed Tibet. Now, they are trying to use history as a weapon to wield influence in an area that is historically Korean."

One China-- a policy we abet, and which keeps our politicians relatively silent on issues like the disappearance of Tibet and the debate over Taiwan's status. What keeps us from speaking out too loudly about all this is the economic angle: we don't want to lose China as a trading partner. The Chinese market means too much to us: we have a vested interest in... investing in China.

One of the things I used to believe is that market penetration is key to changing repressive political systems. The fact that China's economy is, effectively speaking, no longer communist is a reflection of the efforts of not only politicians, but businessmen who, along with products, import values. Unfortunately, that doesn't keep our companies from running into (moral and legal) trouble when they collude in China's crushing of human rights.

The problem: US corporations aren't under any obligation to be moral paragons; their purpose is stay focused on that bottom line. While our way of doing things might rub off on other people, it doesn't have to. In China, for example, a lot of Chinese Internet firewall technology comes to them courtesy of American companies. This latest round of articles on Microsoft's involvement in Chinese repression of its people (and what an irony, eh? Bill Gates: humanitarian!) is another case in point: business isn't a sure raft for the importation of Western democratic values.

As a result, I'm revising my own position on this. Business is, at best, one possible engine of change, and nothing more.

When Andrew Natsios argued that the people of North Korea got a glimpse of the outside world when NGO and other aid workers were working in their country, his point was that our mere presence in a totalitarian regime has the potential to create ripples of destabilization as people are confronted with heretofore unasked values questions.

What China and Microsoft are demonstrating is that Natsios's vision may have some merit, but it's also more than a little optimistic. When we focus on China in particular, we are faced with the uncomfortable realization that it's going to take a lot more than business ties to change a huge, powerful, and repressive one-party government. And when we zoom back to a more international scale, we have to consider China's frank imperialism, which dwarfs America's own (assuming you even accept the idea that America is imperialist in the classic sense; I disagree, but agree with Bill Whittle's "empire of the mind" argument).

China stares hungrily at Tibet, then eats it. It's staring hungrily at Taiwan, and might well be waiting to pounce on a weak North Korea, given the chance. Is the above-quoted Korean scholar being paranoid? Based on China's rapacious history, I don't think so. Tibet's gone, folks. Tibet, as a people and culture, effectively exists in Dharamsala, India, with the Dalai Lama. It exists in pockets across the United States, where grass-roots individuals, if not politicians, have taken an interest in its preservation. But Tibet doesn't exist in Tibet-- don't believe the Chinese lies.

And Taiwan's next. North Korea might well be on the menu, too. I wouldn't be surprised. Koreabloggers argue that Korea needs to start worrying about what happens when the US leaves and China is leering at it from down the street. When they argue this, it's China's imperialism-- imperialism in the good ol' classic sense, not the newfangled one-- that they're talking about. Watching American-style Korean programs isn't the same as being told by the occupying power that you actually belong, heart and soul and history, to America-- that you were, in fact, American all along. Therein lies the bullshit of the "America is imperialist" argument.

Meantime, trust China as far as you can throw it.

[NB: the Tibet link was Salon premium content, but it's aged sufficiently that it's now available to all. It's also one of the better Salon articles I've read.]

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