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It's Not North Korean Nukes that's the Chief Korean Problem

by Mark Selden
Mr. Selden is a senior researcher, East Asia Program, Cornell University and a coordinator of Japan Focus, an e-journal and weblog on Japan and the Asia Pacific available at http://japanfocus.org.

The essence of the “Korea Problem” lies not in the threat of North Korean development of atomic weapons; nor does it lie in the existence of a rogue regime in North Korea (DPRK), as the international press and some American presidents and politicians would have it. The central problem is the division of the Korean peninsula, the outcome of half a century of Japanese colonial rule and a legacy of the incomplete character of independence resulting from US-Soviet division of Korea and the Korean War that has now continued in various forms for more than six decades. While the US role is critical, lasting solutions to Koreas problems, the most dangerous legacy of the US-Soviet division of Asia, can only be resolved in an Asia Pacific and global framework.

In recent decades, two broadly contradictory approaches to resolving Korean conflicts have emerged. The first position, favored at this writing by the George W. Bush administration, with Japanese backing, emphasizes regime destabilization through international pressures including financial and political sanctions leading to regime change. It presumes that North Korea (DPRK) will be absorbed into a South Korea (ROK) operating within the framework of American strategic preeminence in the Asia Pacific and beyond. The second position, promoted by the Roh administration, and at times by China and Russia, looks toward reduction in military tensions, provision of economic aid, and encouragement of economic reform leading eventually toward economic, social, and eventually political integration of North and South. As envisaged in the North-South Agreement of 2000 negotiated by Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong-il, this would take the form of a Korean confederation, leading eventually to reunification.

Both positions presume the elimination or freezing of the DPRK nuclear program. Both presume fundamental transformation of DPRK politics, economics and society, and a more harmonious regional order based on an end to the Korean War and rapprochement involving DPRK, the US, Japan, ROK, China and Russia. But whereas the first is predicated on regime change, the second looks toward a softer, even peaceful transformation of the two Koreas within a broader regional consensus. Without agreement among the regional powers, above all the US and China, however, neither position can be effectively implemented.

Whatever one’s views of North Korea, it is difficult to imagine the first scenario being achieved in the absence of major war on the Korean peninsula or beyond, one whose destructiveness could well rival or exceed that of the earlier Korean War. Stated differently, North Korea is not East Germany. It can be expected to fight fiercely if attacked.

The second route faces immense difficulties, above all those posed by the dominance of US neoconservatives in the security sphere, but no less by North Korean intransigence and South Korean divisions, as well as the legacy of six decades of war and the continued threat of war in the region. It is important to note, however, tendencies in American policymaking that committed as recently as the Clinton administration, and could once again commit, resources and political capital to such an outcome in the interest of eliminating a North Korean nuclear option and general tension reduction.

It is worth recalling that the Clinton administration in 1994 reached agreement with the DPRK on a package that contained many of the elements of a solution of the second type. In exchange for freezing its nuclear weapons program, the DPRK was promised light water reactors and heavy fuel to solve its energy problems. The implicit understanding  was that this could pave the way for a Treaty ending the Korean War and establishing US-DPRK diplomatic and economic relations. The failure of the Clinton administration to follow through on any of these promises led to the collapse of the deal. Almost the first act of the G.W. Bush administration on assuming office in 2001 was to denounce the framework as a “sellout”. Yet even the Bush administration, in fall 2005, accepted an agreement hammered out in Six-Party talks that were based on comparable principles . . . only to reject it one day later producing the present impasse. This record suggests the depths of divisions within both the Clinton and Bush administrations on North Korea, divisions that include recognition of advantages in ending the Korean War and bringing North Korea into the international order.

The same divisions exist in Japanese policy. The boldest diplomatic initiative of the Koizumi Junichiro administration was two trips to the DPRK in search of an agreement that would restore diplomatic relations and end the DPRK nuclear program. In the face of revelations about North Korean kidnapping of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, however, the political pendulum swung immediately toward antipathy toward to the DPRK culminating in Japan’s denunciation of the July 4, 2006 North Korean missile tests, Japanese tabling of a strong Security Council resolution condemning the DPRK, threat of preemptive attack, and economic and financial measures to pressure the DPRK. Japan thus aligned squarely with the US in pressing for isolation and regime change.

The DPRK effort to draw attention to its desire to reopen negotiations drew on the only weapon in its arsenal: nuclear threat. The principal consequences, however, were to weaken North Korea’s position with its most important allies, the ROK and China, and to produce mild UN Security Council sanctions. Tim Beal has pointed out that

“The Security Council’s condemnation of the DRPK missiles tests was a blatant violation of the UN charter, which respects the right of all countries to self-defence. The DPRK, as a sovereign state, was quite within its rights to test missiles. The censure was also an egregious breach of natural justice. During the weeks around the DPRK tests both Russia and India test fired a ballistic missile, and the US tested two. The ROK government announced that it . . . had test fired cruise missiles . . . some ten times over the last three years. It appears that the Security Council which thought that ‘such launches jeopardize peace, stability and security in the region and beyond’ considered this applied only to the DPRK, and not other countries who conducted such tests.”

At the same time, as Leon Sigal has pointed out, DPRK diplomacy in the wake of the tests risks further isolation. The UN Security Council resolution condemning the missile tests gave both North Korea and the US further excuses not to negotiate. The question is how to reverse this polarization in favor of reconciliation.

The best, perhaps ultimately the only, prospect for moving forward on the diplomatic front lies with the Six-Party talks. Yet in the absence of confidence-building measures, such prospects seem remote. The resumption of talks between North and South, and particularly reversal of recent steps to downgrade their relations in the wake of DPRK tests and the tightening of the US-ROK strategic relationship, can help to create momentum toward breaking the impasse. Increasing economic ties, family visits, South Korean tourism in the North, and expansion of the free trade zone can set the stage for wider regional rapprochement. Such measures can build confidence for further restorative measures.

The aggressive and erratic behavior of the DPRK constitutes, of course, a barrier to normalization. We should not, however, be surprised at the schizophrenia of a small state that has faced war, confrontation and nuclear intimidation by the superpower for more than half a century.

South Korea, China and Russia can play critical roles in convincing Japan and the US that the costs of destabilization of the DPRK are prohibitive, the results likely to be counterproductive, perhaps leading to war. By improving their own relations with North Korea, they can demonstrate the region and global benefits.

Other groups with interest in regional accord, such as Korean residents in Japan and the United States as well as naturalized Koreans in Japan, could redouble efforts to encourage expanded relations with North Korea and peaceful regional outcomes. The US-based Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea, including a strong contingent of Koreans and Korean Americans, exemplifies the possibilities of improving understanding of North Korea and the Korea problem in the United States.

A critical question is whether the ROK can play a more effective role in reducing regional tensions at the same time that it intensifies its subordinate security relationship with the United States, as in the expansion of the Pyong-taek military base and the conducting of provocative joint US-ROK military exercises. Or whether this undercuts the possibilities for regional reconciliation. To the extent that the ROK can use its relationship with the US to increase awareness of the regional possibilities of an accord, more positive outcomes seem possible.

The two best prospects for reconciliation in Korea—the improvement of North-South relations and the Six-Party talks—have both been set back by recent events. They nevertheless offer the brightest hope for future gains that can bring peace and an end of Korean division and war on the peninsula through demonstrating the regional possibilities of accord.