Doggoned

THOSE OF age in 1997 may well still remember Wag the Dog.

For one, it starred Hollywood A-listers Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffman.

More worth unforgetting though is its plot – a Washington DC spinmeister distracts the electorate from a sex scandal (shades of the Bill-Monica affair) a few days before the election by hiring a film producer to…well, produce a bogus war with Albania.

The movie did not birth the idiom “wag the dog,” having been in the American lexicon since the 1870s, originating from “the tail wagging the dog.” Nonetheless, it was the movie that really made it an operative word in politics and communications, spawning the meaning “to start a war or military operation to divert political attention away from yourself.”        

General usage now has “wag the dog” meaning to create a situation to divert the people’s attention from what is otherwise of greater significance, concern or interest to them. 

Wag the dog. That is precisely what I see in the current war rhetorics of North Korea. No, I have absolutely no pretensions to expertise in geopolitics, at best being an armchair generalist. Still, the tell-tale signs are all there.  

North Korea is the dog. So who is wagging it? China.

Only China can wag the North Korean dog, being its economic patron, diplomatic partner, virtual lifeline to the rest of the world. In short China is its master.

So why should China do the wagging?

To divert attention from China’s own incursions into the West Philippine Sea and the disputed waters off Japan.

China has earned some ill reputation of being an international bully, of pursuing a policy of hegemony against its smaller neighbors.

China has not endeared itself even to its special administrative region of Hong Kong, the locals vehemently protesting the mainland’s attempt to impose in the school systems some histories and practices alien to the Hong Kongers.

China is starting to look like a pariah to the world.

More than a public relations campaign, China needed something of greater impact. Something akin to the “shock and awe” doctrine perfected in Operation Desert Storm.

So it wags the North Korean dog.

Shocked was the world by North Korea’s bellicose stand – its persistent high pitched threats of nuke attacks on US targets, South Korea and Japan.

Awed is the world now with China’s openness to help resolve the burgeoining crisis, as articulated by foreign policy chief, State Councilor Yang Jiechi thus: “China is firmly committed to upholding peace and stability and advancing the denuclearization process on the Korean peninsula…We maintain that the issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue. … To properly address the Korean nuclear issue serves the interests of all parties.”

Unlost in translation to US Secretary of State John Kerry as “synergy” between the two countries to achieve worldwide security and economic stability.

So, Kerry: “We have a stake in China’s success. And frankly, China has a stake in the success of the United States. And that became clear in all of our conversations here today. A constructive partnership that is based on mutual interest benefits everybody in the world.”

So China is now an international peacemaker. Its own territorial aggression in Asia put in the backburner.

Doggone it.