Obama rewards Hu Jintao with major concession in return for nothing from Pyongyang

China’s North Korean policy suffered a setback when Premier Wen Jiabao failed to get anything substantial from Kim Jong-Il regarding the resuscitation of the so-called six-party talks being hosted by the Chinese.

However, Obama’s decision not to see his fellow Nobel Prize laureate Dalai Lama during his ongoing visit to Washington has handed Beijing a big victory in its decades-long crusade of preventing “foreign interference” in its repressive policies toward Tibet and Xinjiang.

Upon leaving Pyongyang on Tuesday with Wen, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi claimed that the premier’s historic tour was “rich in content and weighty in outcome.”

However, on the subject of his country’s return to the negotiation table in Beijing, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-Il only expressed “our readiness to hold multilateral talks, depending on the outcome of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea-U.S. talks.” And while Kim reiterated Pyongyang’s theoretical commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, he was but repeating the same rhetorical pledges made by his aides and diplomats during the past month or so.

Newspapers in South Korea have reported that DPRK scientists have all along proceeded with their ambitious nuclear weapons program.

Wen’s North Korean diplomacy is disappointing because prior to his visit, the Chinese Foreign Ministry took the unusual step of announcing that Beijing would bolster food and fuel aid to the Stalinist regime. On top of this, Wen personally presented China’s once-and-future ally with gifts worth $20 million.

Since July, the leadership under President Hu Jintao, who takes personal charge of foreign and security policies, has also silenced domestic critics of the DPRK.

Soon after Pyongyang’s nuclear test on May 25, several renowned Chinese experts on the Koreas published articles in the official media blasting Kim’s misguided attempts to build a full-fledged nuclear arsenal. Such criticisms have disappeared from even the chat-rooms of China’s websites.

On relations with the U.S., however, Hu, who heads the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Leading Group on Foreign Affairs, is said to be ecstatic over Obama’s decision not to see the Dalai Lama during the Tibetan spiritual leader’s five-day visit to Washington this week.

This was the first time since 1991 that a U.S. president has failed to vouchsafe the Dalai Lama even a “drop in” opportunity at the White House.

U.S. officials have indicated that this stems from the new policy of “strategic reassurance,” meaning essentially that Washington will make concessions to Beijing on issues such as human rights and Tibet in return for the latter’s cooperation on the financial and environmental fronts.

Chinese and foreign diplomatic sources in Beijing said since large-scale riots broke out in Tibet and Xinjiang in March 2008, Hu, who also oversees policies toward ethnic minorities, has been attacked by CCP factions outside of his own Communist Youth League clique.

Former President Jiang Zemin, who shared the limelight with Hu during the National Day military parade in Beijing last Thursday, launched bitter criticisms against Hu — and his cronies who are running Xinjiang and Tibet — for failing to maintain “socio-political harmony” in China’s restive western regions.

Obama’s buckling under Chinese pressure, however, has been perceived by Hu and his advisers as a major Chinese triumph. Henceforward, Hu, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, will feel much less qualms about turning the big guns on recalcitrant Tibetan and Uighur groups in the two strife-torn autonomous regions.

Moreover, Obama’s snubbing the Dalai Lama would set a precedent that Beijing’s newly assertive diplomats will use when they try to oblige a number of European and Asian countries not to meet senior members of the exiled Tibetan and Uighur communities.

Beijing is also expected to put more pressure on Washington not to “interfere” with China’s handling of Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Since taking office in January, Obama and his top aides have largely refrained from criticizing Beijing’s policies on human rights and ethnic minorities.

Adapted, and amended from an article by Willy Lam a Hong Kong-based China scholar and journalist specializing in Communist Party politics and foreign policy.