China Daily, August 7, 2017.
Tim Beal is a retired New Zealand academic who has written extensively on Asia with a special focus on the Korean Peninsula. Recent publications include the entry on Korea for
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism (New York: Springer, 2019). He has also written some chapters for a forthcoming collection: Immanuel Ness and Stuart Davis, eds.,
Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy (Leiden: Brill, 2021).
He is very grateful for the unstinting assistance of Ankie Hoogvelt and Gregory Elich in providing comments and corrections.
In August 1945, Washington’s view of the world was utterly transformed in line with the “gunboat diplomacy” dictum of Lord Palmerston countries have no permanent friends or enemies, just permanent interests.