China Gets Tough on North Korea

North Korea's best friend -- if the hermetic, authoritarian, communist state can be said to have any friends -- is giving it the cold shoulder. Bloomberg reports that China will, for the first time, agree to punish North Korean leaders in retaliation for Pyongyang's refusal to accept United Nations resolutions on nuclear tests and missile launches.

China has long defended North Korea, perhaps less out of ideological comradeship than out of what is believed to be a desire to keep a unified and likely pro-Western Korea off its borders. But that loyalty has cost the leadership in Beijing. "The failure to develop a consensus in the Chinese capital to use its leverage over North Korea has permitted [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong Il to repeatedly defy Beijing and the embarrass it," Gordon G. Chang told The Commonwealth Club on May 25, 2007. [Listen to audio of Chang's speech.]

Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World and columnist for Forbes.com, urged the West to make nuclear proliferation "a litmus test of our relations" with China. "The West has been patiently engaging the Chinese for decades, and now it's time for them to act responsibly."

So what has changed in Beijing? Some observers say that North Korea's recent nuclear detonations and missile tests, reportedly designed to bolster at-home support for Kim Jong Il's youngest son and chosen successor, embarrassed China so much it had to take action. But Leif-Eric Easley writes in the Christian Science Monitor that China's rapid development has led it to diverge from North Korea, its economic model taking it closer to Japan, the United States, and South Korea than to North Korea.

Whatever the reason, China's most recent move to help punish its client state is likely to have significant impact in Pyongyang.

Obama’s Order a Stem-Cell a Cure-All for the Controversy?

“Today, with the Executive Order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers; doctors and innovators; patients and loved ones have hoped for, and fought for, these past eight years: we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research.”

With these words and the stroke of a pen (well, six pens, technically), President Obama today made good on a much-anticipated campaign promise to lift restrictions on research that could yield new treatments for patients with spinal injuries, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and other life-threatening conditions.

Before Obama’s executive order, limits imposed in 2001 by President Bush blocked federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and restricted it to the use of existing lines. He twice vetoed congressional attempts to overturn the ban -- which many critics saw as an attempt to placate the most conservative segment of his supporters. By way of explanation, Bush said at the time, “It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect.”

Obama dismissed that approach as offering “a false choice between sound science and moral values.” And support for his decision, while predictably enthusiastic among patient-advocate groups and research institutions, also comes from some less likely corners: A Boston Globe roundup of standpoints from assorted religious leaders lends credence to Obama’s that while at times demands of faith and science must strike a “difficult and delicate balance,” the two are “not inconsistent.”

But even setting aside criticism from those like Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner -- who says Obama has “rolled back important protections for innocent life” -- assorted other challenges to the success of the research remain. The Christian Science Monitor cites one market analyst who predicts the executive order will have little immediate effect on the industry, which is currently geared toward less controversial adult stem cell research.

Additional obstacles -- from the minefield of intellectual property law to the shortage of capital in tough economic times -- may further delay realization of the field’s much-lauded potential. On Wednesday, March 18, you can get the latest outlook for stem cell research from one of its leading advocates, Bernard Siegel of the Genetics Policy Institute. Join him for “Stem Cell Advocacy 2.0: The Role of the Stem Cell Consumer Movement in the Obama Era” at noon in the club office. (For more information, check Club web site.)

--By Alia Salim