Commentary

The impasse between the DPRK and the United States continues, with no sign of a breakthrough in sight. However, there has been a continuing flurry of diplomatic dancing involving Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and Washington. First Tokyo. There has been one report, not confirmed, that Koizumi is planning a return visit to Pyongyang. His previous trip, in September 2002, seemed to herald a turning-point in DPRK-Japan relations but that soon soured, for reasons which are not clear. Perhaps Koizumi underestimated the media frenzy about the abductees issue (which ironically his visit had virtually solved). It seems more likely that he was subjected to considerable US pressure and caved in, using the abductee issue to cover his tracks. Koizumi, and the Japanese right, have longed used confrontation with the DPRK, and support for US military actions, especially post 9/11, as the vehicle by which they can achieve the goal of rearmament and becoming a ‘normal nation’. Now, with the Iraq adventure looking more like misadventure, and the danger to Japan of a US-DPRK clash mounting he may just conceivably be having second thoughts, but it is more likely he will jump the other way and use interdiction of DPRK shipping to flex Japanese military might in East Asia.

It was significant that Hu Jintao made his first foreign visit as Chinese president to Moscow. It is predicted that he will be more assertive of Chinese interests, and more resistant to US pressure, than Jiang Zemin. A re-invigorated Beijing-Moscow relationship would be a key part of that. Both Moscow and Beijing have problems with Islam-articulated secessionism and are happy to cosy up the US and shelter behind the ‘war on terror’ which takes the heat off them in the Islamic world and in US public opinion (though they don’t like US bases spread through Central Asia). However, Korea is another matter and neither want confrontation, or worse still war, on the Korean peninsula. For both of them South Korea is a very important trading partner. A successful US invasion of the DPRK would bring American troops back to the Yalu and the prolonged Korean resistance would threaten them both, but especially China, with becoming embroiled. China also, but Russia no longer, has a treaty obligation to come to DPRK assistance if attacked. There has been a report, again unconfirmed, that Kim Jong Il made a trip to China late March to meet Hu Jintao. China, with Russian support, has blocked US moves to have the UN Security Council demand that DPRK rejoin the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) unconditionally which, if the DPRK complied, would mean abandoning its nuclear programme. Since it withdrew from the NPT because the US abrogated the Agreed Framework this is unlikely, but defying a UN resolution would appear to put it in the wrong.

Roh Moo-hyun has tried energetically, if not successfully, to press for negotiations (i.e. a return to the NPT conditional on US undertakings). He is caught between US pressure, which he seems less confident in resisting than Kim Dae-jung, and the realties of the situation. He has also lost out to the hawks in Seoul who have re-designated the DPRK as ‘the main enemy’.

Washington is also a battleground. Within the administration there are hawks (Powell), ultra-hawks (Bolton) but no doves. No one is advocating negotiation, only talks after unilateral DPRK concessions. There is military build-up and exercises, harassment, misinformation (OPLAN 5030), diplomatic pressure on other countries to enforce sanctions and to interdict DPRK ships on the high seas. Quite illegal (but so was the invasion of Iraq) and a violation of the armistice, and probably designed to provoke Pyongyang into a reaction which could be portrayed as aggressive and, for the ultras, justify military action. Outside the administration, Republican Congressman Curt Weldon has returned from leading a delegation to Pyongyang (and going to church there) reiterating the DPRK offer of abandoning the nuclear programme in exchange for a non-aggression treaty and the lifting of sanctions (i.e. a partial implementation of the Agreed Framework) and has put forward a .plan for a negotiated settlement. Church leaders have called for non-aggression and normalisation of relations.

North-South relations have been progressing strongly, with the railways reconnected, and ground breaking for the Hyundai industrial park in Kaesong. Economic reform moves ahead. This is excellent, but not sufficient. Kim Jong Il needs to help the beleaguered Roh Moo-hyun, preferably with a summit meeting between the two. If Seoul is not possible because of security concerns, perhaps the venue could be Cheju, or even Beijing. But best would be the first train from Pyongyang to Seoul.

Tim Beal

Finding a way out with North Korea

Interview with Selig S Harrison , … director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and the author of Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reunification and U.S. Disengagement ..//..

Q: Still, you are optimistic that the North Korean leadership can be convinced to refrain from building more nuclear weapons?

A: I think they're ready to dismantle their nuclear program under adequate inspections if we're prepared to pay what they consider an acceptable price. First, we'd have to join in a bilateral or multilateral agreement pledging not to use our nuclear weapons against North Korea, an agreement that would have to be linked to a de-nuclearization process. Second, we'd have to pledge not to pursue the policy of regime change that President Bush has made clear is his preferred approach to North Korea. Third, we'd have to be prepared for large-scale energy and food aid. If we pursue pressure tactics that they would view as designed to overthrow the present regime, they are certain to respond either militarily or through other retaliation such as selling nuclear material to anti-American third parties…//..

Q: What has been the impact of the American victory in Iraq on North Korea?

A: There is no question that the lesson that the North Koreans have learned from Iraq is that it needs a nuclear deterrent. The American unilateralism reflected in Iraq and in many other ways is alienating the United States from China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. We could end up with the worst of both worlds - a nuclear North Korea and estranged relations with countries important to us globally as well as regionally.

Q: Contrary to the expectations of many policymakers, you argue that North Korea is not about to collapse. Why?

A: Not only is North Korea more effectively insulated from outside influences than the countries of Eastern Europe, but it also has a nationalist mystique and a Confucian historical legacy that makes its totalitarian system more broadly accepted than was the case in Eastern Europe. The late Kim Il Sung is revered as the George Washington of his country.

Source: New York Times 7 June 2002

Perry Urges US to Have Serious Talks With NK

Interview with William Perry, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense who dealt with the 1994 nuclear crisis..//..

Q: The Bush administration officers says that they can't give any carrots to North Korea before North Korea dismantles the nuclear programs.

A: Neither carrots nor sticks are relevant if you are not discussing.

You cannot do this by public announcement; you have to actually meet with the North.

What's missing today is dialogue. I believe a way can be found that the Bush administration would be very much willing to provide some security assurances needed by the North and I believe that the South would provide some of the economic benefits from trading with the North. All those things might be achievable, but it takes dialogue to achieve them. //..

Source Korea Times 8 June 2003

Pentagon Plan 5030

Within the past two months, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has ordered U.S. military commanders to devise a new war plan..//.. so aggressive that they could provoke a war..//.. Adm. Thomas Fargo, ..//..and senior Pentagon planners are developing the highly classified plan. The administration insiders, who are critical of the plan, say it blurs the line between war and peace. The plan would give commanders in the region authority to conduct maneuvers--before a war has started--to drain North Korea's limited resources, strain its military, and perhaps sow enough confusion that North Korean generals might turn against the country's leader, Kim Jong Il. "Some of the things [Fargo] is being asked to do," says a senior U.S. official, "are, shall we say, provocative." ..//..

Some officials believe the draft plan amounts to a strategy to topple Kim's regime by destabilizing its military forces. The reason: It is being pushed by many of the same administration hard-liners who advocated regime change in Iraq. ..//..

But if the Pentagon gives commanders more authority to take aggressive actions in peacetime, as contemplated in Plan 5030, it risks tripping over the president's--and Congress's--authority to commit the nation to war, says a senior official. "Who decides when to go to war?" the official asks. "Good question."

Source: US News and World Report, Nation & World 21 July 2003

USFK Unveils Massive Force Reinforcement Scheme

The United States will invest additional $11 billion over the next three years to strengthen its forces in South Korea, procuring upgraded missile systems and reinforcing military intelligence, the Defense Ministry and the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said Saturday…//..

According to the plan, the U.S. will set aside additional $11 billion (14 trillion won) for the next three years, which amounts to 80 percent of South Korea's defense budget of 17.4 trillion won this year.

The U.S. strongly insisted on giving a joint press conference Saturday, although South Korea initially opposed to the proposal for fear of elevating tensions amid the deepening rift over Pyongyang's nuclear programs.

Source: Korea Times 1 June 2003

[in 2002 US military expenditure was $382.2 billion, ROK $14.1b, DPRK $1.2b Tim Beal]

High stakes on the high seas in Korean blockade

Confronting North Korean vessels may involve Australia in a challenge to the very law of the sea writes Christopher Kremmer.

Fresh from victory in Iraq, the Bush Administration appears to be gearing up for more high stakes adventures, this time on the high seas. But intercepting ships plying international waters - even rogue ships from North Korea - is a legal and logistical nightmare.

Washington's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), unveiled by President George Bush in a speech in Poland in May, aims to assemble a coalition of countries, including Australia, to "search planes and ships carrying suspect cargo and to seize illegal weapons or missile technologies"…//..

"There's nothing in the Law of the Sea Convention that would allow a country to intercept a vessel in international waters on suspicion that it's carrying arms or weapons of mass destruction," says Professor Anthony Bergin, also of UNSW's ADFA campus, and one of Australia's leading authorities on the convention.

Maritime trading nations like Australia depend heavily on the protections the convention provides for their shipping, and are reluctant to violate it…//.. If North Korea resorts to relying solely on its own flagged ships, its weapons shipments will be virtually untouchable, as are US arms shipments which account for almost 30 per cent of the world's armaments trade. ..//..

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has warned that North Korea's leaders "are facing a fateful choice". But so, in the long run, is Howard.

"It's a fairly aggressive action to effectively blockade a country," says Dr Sam Bateman, the director of the Centre for Maritime Policy at the University of Wollongong ..//..

But Australian experts are sceptical about Bolton's justification [that “It's not only legitimate, it's necessary self-defence”]"Without the backing of the UN, you have no choice but to claim self-defence as the reason for such an action. But it's a pretty tall order to think Australia could cite self-defence in order to be involved in an interception operation on the high seas," says Bergin…//..

Such operations - which could continue for months or years - might see Japan's navy take a leading role in military operations in the Pacific for the first time since World War II, and with the blessing of the US.

"Japan now boasts the second largest navy in the world, with 60 to 70 frigates and destroyers, half a dozen subs, and a very significant coast guard, and it was the only East Asian nation represented at Brisbane," notes Bergin…//..

Source: Sydney Morning Herald. 12 July 2003

Is the new U.S. interdiction policy to stop WMD trafficking legal?

Yes and no. It is legal for the United States and other willing nations to stop and search foreign ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within their territorial waters, which extend 12 miles from their shorelines. But legally interdicting ships sailing in international or hostile waters will likely require some modifications to current international law, legal experts say.

Source: Council on Foreign Relations (Washington) 26 June 2003

DPRK increasing its nuclear deterrent force for self-defence

Pyongyang, June 18 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry today issued the following statement: The United States is conducting a psychological warfare and a blockade operation against the DPRK in real earnest.

The U.S. is engrossed in a mean smear campaign to tarnish the image of the system in the DPRK, groundlessly charging it with drug smuggling, counterfeiting of money, suppression of religious freedom, exodus of refugees, human traffic, training of computer hackers and arms sale, etc.

At the same time, it is barring the routine service of DPRK-flagged trading vessels under various pretexts. this hostile act is, in fact, little short of sea blockade against the DPRK.

No matter how desperately the U.S. may try to cover up these moves, they are, in the final analysis, acts of scrapping the armistice agreement, a declaration of war and a war action in view of their nature. ..//..

In fact, no country in the world so strictly bans the drug smuggling, counterfeiting of money, human traffic and other unethical acts as the DPRK.

Any contention that the DPRK may secretly sell nuclear substance and missiles to terrorist groups is a mockery of its firm stand against terrorism.

The DPRK government's policy on arms export allows only strictly legal deal in weapons to meet proper requirements of sovereign states for defense. ..//..

The DPRK once again clarifies that it has the right to immediately retaliate against any physical hostile act regarded as an act of ditching the armistice agreement and a declaration of a war.

The DPRK will put further spurs to increasing its nuclear deterrent force for self-defence as a just self-defence measure to cope with the U.S. strategy to isolate and stifle the DPRK the danger of which is increasing with each passing day.

Source: Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang

Korean and U.S. Religious Leaders Join to Address Korea Crisis

Call on U.S. Government to Renounce Military Option, Provide Generous Humanitarian Aid to North Koreans. Group to Take Message Directly to White House, Congress, State Department

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In the face of mounting tensions between the United States and North Korea, religious leaders from South Korea and the United States joined humanitarian experts today in calling for the U.S. government to promote a peaceful solution to the crisis. ..//..

Specifically the leaders called for:

· The prompt reconvening of talks with North Korea. "It is our conviction that diplomacy and negotiations remain the best approach for finding durable solutions," they said.

· The conclusion of a non-aggression pact between North Korea and the United States, renouncement of pre-emptive attack and negotiation of a peace treaty, replacing the present Armistice Treaty of 1953.

· The establishment and exchange of liaison offices between the United States and North Korea as a sign of good faith.

· Immediate action to address the grave humanitarian needs of the North Korean people, whose very lives depend on external food aid. They asked for additional support for the World Food Program to prevent further deterioration in the health of the population…//..

Dr. Selig S. Harrison of the Center for International Policy - "We can get a settlement - if we want one. The question is whether the U.S. government wants it or just wants an excuse for regime change." ..//..

Source: Church World Service 18 June 2003

Scholars Urge Dialogue, Peaceful Resolution to North Korea Issue

STANFORD, CA - A new alliance of scholars urged the United States to normalize relations with North Korea, saying that current U.S. policies toward the DPRK escalate tensions and undermine U.S. security and economic interests.

Current U.S. policies, including threats of military action and increased economic isolation, further alienates a state that needs to be drawn into engagement in order to resolve the nuclear issue, reduce the threat of proliferation, and achieve a lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, according to the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK). Current U.S. policies escalate tensions and bring the Korean peninsula perilously close to another war. Another Korean war would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and political and economic destabilization throughout Asia, thereby threatening U.S. security and economic interests.

Normalizing relations, on the other hand, would help create a new and more open framework for dialogue and understanding between the U.S. and North Korea, thereby significantly enhancing international stability and U.S. security. The path to normalization will not be easy, the scholarly alliance warned, and will require real "give and take" negotiations with North Korea.

Source: ASCK , 9 June 2003

Korea Peace Committee

A committee is being formed in New Zealand to promote peace on the Korean peninsula. A statement is being formulated and will be released shortly. It will be sent to all Pyongyang Report subscribers with an invitation to endorse it.

Further details may be obtained from Tim Beal