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| AsiaViews, Edition: 17/IV/May/2007 |
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| North Korean Nuclear Weapons and the Korea Triangle |
Dr. Han Sung-Joo is currently President of Korea University. He is also Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Korea University, President of the Seoul Forum for International Affairs, and Chairman of International Policy Studies Institute of Korea(IpsiKor). He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1993-94), UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Cyprus (1996-97), a member of the UN Inquiry Commission on the 1994 Rwanda Genocide (1999), Chairman of the East Asia Vision Group (2000-2001), and Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States (2003-2005).
Prof. Han is a graduate of Seoul National University (1962) and received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1970). His English publications include Korean Diplomacy in an Era of Globalization (1995), Korea in a Changing World (1995), and Changing Values in Asia (1999). The following is excerpted from his paper presented at the Asian Voices Seminar, organized by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and the European Policy Center in Brussels on April 2007.
Not too long ago, there were headlines which indicated that a basic shift was taking place in the Korean Peninsula, especially in relation to the North Korean nuclear issue. Today in Northeast Asia, there are two triangles evolving. One is among the United States, China and South Korea. The other is that of the United States, China and North Korea. The February 13th agreement is both a reflection of the changing shape and content of these triangles and serving as a catalyst for such changes.
All told, we are witnessing a development whereby the relationship between China and South Korea is expanding and the United States and North Korea is beginning a journey toward rapprochement, North Korea's nuclear weapons notwithstanding. Despite issues involving ancient history, the relationship between China and South Korea has been getting closer since their diplomatic normalization in 1992. Their two-way trade went over the $100 billion mark in 2006, which compares with $70 billion two-way trade between the United States and South Korea. A free trade agreement (FTA) between South Korea and the United States will narrow that gap, but only temporarily and only to a limited extent.
We are witnessing changes in the alliance relationship between South Korea and the United States as well. The transfer of wartime operational control, if and when carried out, is an indication of such changes and at the same time will further accelerate them. We are also witnessing the beginning of a thaw between North Korea and the United States, two countries which have had hostile and confrontational relationship over the years.
How do we explain these evolvements? What set of factors is causing these changes? One way to get at the answers to questions is to examine the strategic thinking of the actors, the four countries, namely, China, the United States, North and South Korea.
How do we describe the strategic thinking of China on Korea, North and South? Regarding the Korean Peninsula, it seems that China has three basic goals, which are often in competition if not conflict with one another. First, China has a stake in maintaining the status quo of North Korean existence in the Korean Peninsula. China does not want the disruption that would accompany and follow the collapse of North Korea. North Korea has allowed China extensive investments in its mines and harbors. China wants to keep North Korea afloat.
Second, China wants peace to be maintained in the Korean Peninsula.An armed conflict, small or large, will inevitably and prematurely disrupt its current goal of focusing on what it calls "peaceful development" and become a great power in due course.
Third, China wants de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In particular, a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons and long range missiles constitute both a direct threat upon itself and a possible precipitator of an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
During the first North Korean nuclear crisis of 1993-94, China mostly stayed in the background. But when it was called for, such as in June of 1994, China actively sought to persuade and restrain North Korea, using its influence, thus bringing North Korea back to the conference table. This led to the Geneva Agreed Framework of October 1994.
In the current round, since 2002, China is visibly and actively involved in the North Korean nuclear issue. This has been in part due to the urgings of the United States but in large part in recognition of the danger that the problem can get out of hand and control. China also saw an opportunity to assert its diplomatic initiative, presence and influence.
But China did not comply with U.S.'s other wish, that is, to use China's leverage over North Korea and apply pressure to persuade it to resolve the issue, at least until the missile test of July 4, 2006, and nuclear test of October 9, 2006. The pattern of Chinese responses to the North Korean nuclear issue has shown certain peculiarities. Even though China would be threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons, it seems to place priority on "peaceful resolution" of the issue - that is, to freeze rather than dismantlement. China would like to allow North Korea to remain a nuclear weapons state as long as the number does not increase, fissile material remains frozen and it does not lead to conflict. China has been encouraging and urging the United States to have bi-lateral talks and improve relationship with North Korea. China has also been urging the United States to lower the barrier for the resolution of the nuclear issue and improving bilateral relations between the United States and North Korea. Furthermore, China has refrained from making issue linkages between the nuclear issue on the one hand and other important issues, such as Taiwan and trade. It is clear that early in the game, China decided that the price of working for a complete de-nuclearization of North Korea is simply to high relative to accepting the status quo, however undesirable it is. China seems to be prepared to accept if not recognize, the current level of North Korean nuclear weapons, welcome U.S.-North Korea rapprochement, and maintain what amounts to an equal distance policy between North and South Korea.
What are the U.S. strategic thoughts regarding Korea? Until recently, the success it achieved in dealing with Libya on its de-nuclearization back in 2003 dictated the U.S. approach to the North Korean nuclear issue. The Bush Administration was critical of the Geneva Agreed Framework of 1994, saying it was immoral, expensive and ineffective (this is what John Foster Dulles said about the Containment Policy), and emphasized sticks over carrots.
However, in the spring of 2007, the Bush Administration's policy changed almost overnight, and quite completely. Why has the Bush administration changed its policy?
Perhaps it was the muddle in Iraq and setbacks in Iran; or the Democrat Party's victory in the November congressional elections. The Bush administration needed a success story somewhere even if that "success" is more perception than fact. Or the North Korean nuclear test which might have made it to conclude that there is no dismantling except by freezing it first. Whatever has brought about it, there clearly has been a rethinking of U.S. strategy. The United States obviously concluded that 1) North Korean nuclear weapons are more of a threat to China than to the United States; 2) they will make both South Korea and Japan more dependent on the United States; 3) dealing with the issue however unsatisfactory it is will enable the United States to improve relations with North Korea; and 4) it will help remove avery thorny issue in U.S.-China relations.
The United States must have concluded that as long as no transfer of nuclear material or weapons takes place, and a freeze on the number and size of the North Korean nuclear arsenal can be enforced, it is better to find an accommodation, past brave and tough talk notwithstanding.
What is North Korea's strategy? North Korea has a knack of lulling the other members of the Six-Parties into complacency, thinking that the issue is being resolved. Now, the United States has joined China and South Korea as countries which are only ready to construe North Korean moves as steps toward the resolution of the issue. North Korea also skillfully redefines the issue, from dismantlement of the nuclear weapons, material and program to whether or not to test the bomb, coming back to the six-party talks, or along the IAEA inspectors back into North Korea. By being difficult generally, North Korea makes any small "concession" look like a big retreat and gesture.
I do not think this euphoria and optimism are justified as far as the complete de-nuclearization of North Korea is concerned. Right now, the North Korean strategy consists of two elements. One is what I would call salami tactic in reverse-that is, doling out inconsequential concessions and exact big rewards. The other is the North Korean version of Sunshine Policy, a policy aimed at disarming the hardliners, undo sanctions, increase assistance and strengthen the position of its friends. Its ultimately aim is to make its nuclear weapons a fait accompli and legitimize them. China and South Korea, now joined by the United States, are only eager to accept North Korean gestures as genuine and claim them as a success on the road to a complete resolution of the issue.
South Korea's main goal is to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula through accommodation and cooperative relations with North Korea. Since 2002, until the end of 2006, there was a huge gap between South Korea and the United States on how to deal with North Korea and the North Korean nuclear issue in particular. South Korea emphasized carrots and insisted on no pressure on North Korea. South Korea judged that the reason for North Korean nuclear weapons program is the sense of insecurity that North Korea felt, especially vis-à-vis the United States. Make North Korea feel secure, then they will give up the nuclear weapons program. Such was the thinking of the South Korean government President Roh Mu-Hyun. Naturally, the South Korean approach was closer to China's than either that of the United States or Japan.
Now, however, the United moved closer to China and South Korea on how to deal with North Korea and the nuclear issue: "Be gentle and nice to North Korea." The United States came to that conclusion and position for different reasons than South Korea's. All the same, it will have the effect of allowing North Korea to remain as a nuclear weapons state for the foreseeable future.
China and the United States are big powers. Koreans, both in the North and in the South, have what I would call "big power-phobia." Korea as a separate entity has survived over the ages by sometimes being defiant, and sometimes being pliant to its big neighbors. The timing and choice have not been always right. Today, there are two Korea's instead of one, to play that game, in competition with each other and with the encouragement of the big powers as well.
Since the late 19th century, a big point of contention among the Korean elite has been whether to go with the maritime powers or continental powers. After World War II, circumstances made the North to choose the continentals, i.e., the Soviet Union and China. North Korea ended up as a poor country with a dictatorship. South Korea chose the maritime powers headed by the United States. It became a prosperous country with democracy.
Today, more than six decades later, both of them, North and South, are feeling wary of their post-World War II partners. They see an opportunity to adjust their partnerships-not to change or exchange them, but to be friends with both, and not only either one them at the exclusion or in opposition to the other.
However, the problem, especially for the South, is that it has to contend, and cope with, the still dangerous North Korea. North Korea is dangerous because of the oppressive polity, desperate economy, militaristic policy, and unbending will and determination to maintain the regime, now armed with nuclear weapons.
As China has been employing an equal distance policy toward the two Koreas, and the United States making a slow but unmistakable move toward that direction, it gives South Korea both the dilemma and opportunity to navigate between the two powers, which are both competing and cooperating. As the debate and oscillation go on in the South, events and circumstances will move inexorably toward a situation in which South Korea faces the United States whose friendship and support are less unconditional and more calculating than before, and China, which is becoming increasingly more self-confident and influential. In the fact of North Korean nuclear weapons, the threat of which South Korea does not seem to be keenly aware of, the challenge has become even more acute and forbidding.
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| By Yuli Ismartono |
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