Robyn Lim

Maybe I am misguided. But articles by Japan's Nanzan University professor Robyn Lim some how strike me as being 1) highly cynical about China, and 2) having poor predictive value.

In her 2003 article Rumsfeld Warns China on Korea, Lim noted that China derived considerable benefit from its ties with North Korea, even though relations between the two Northeast Asian neighbors had been "rocky and complex." Lim also added that despite denials, China had proliferated nuclear and missile technology to North Korea and other countries.

Lim wrote: "Part of China's calculus was that proliferating to North Korea helped keep Japan in check, much as proliferating to Pakistan helped keep India restrained. No doubt, China also had a Taiwan contingency in mind - that in a Korean crisis, it might be able to induce the U.S. to look the other way while China retook Taiwan by force or threat."

That China expect the Americans to "look the other way" when it comes to retaking Taiwan "by force or threat" during a Korean crisis is not impossible, but far-fetched for now. To me, it is just highly cynical, and yet another indication of Lim's constant projection of China in a threatening light.

As for her articles having poor predictive value, Lim argued in the same article that Beijing must not allow Pyongyang to ride roughshod over it, as doing so might damage China's vital interests.

Fair and good. But she had to go on and add:

"The Chinese must know that the U.S. now has much wider strategic options, that will barely be hampered - and may eventually be enhanced - by a war in Iraq."

Okay, so no one could have predicted the Iraqi war to be so messy, drawn-out and debilitating. But in this particular analysis, Lim could not have been more wrong.