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'Sweet and sour' diplomacy in
Korea
By Ralph A Cossa
"US-NK
military meet to reduce tensions"
"NK threatens to
withdraw from nuclear agreement with US"
The
frustrating thing about these two headlines, which
recently ran on international wire services on the same
day, is that they are both accurate. The Chinese may
have invented "sweet and sour" as a way of cooking, but
North Korea has perfected it as a foreign-policy
approach. As a veteran of negotiations with Pyongyang
once noted, "I look forward to their most vitriolic
outbursts ... they normally come just before actual
progress is going to be made."
In recent days,
North Korean threats and propaganda blasts
notwithstanding, some progress seems to have been made,
not only in North-South relations, but in Pyongyang's
relations with Washington as well. But, while no one
questions Seoul's eagerness to move the process forward,
serious questions continue to be raised about
Pyongyang's sincerity ... and about Washington's as
well.
North-South relations
The
resumption of high-level dialogue between Seoul and
Pyongyang provides the most cause for cautious optimism
these days, even though it remains to be seen just how
much progress will be made and to what effect. One test
of Pyongyang's sincerity will be the resumption, as
promised, of the program that allows the temporary
reunion of families separated since the Korean War.
Previous delays and outright cancellations by Pyongyang
were particularly cruel, given the advanced age of many
of the participants-in-waiting. Since Seoul has yielded
to Pyongyang's demand that these tightly controlled
reunions happen only at North Korea's Mount Kumgang
resort area (thereby keeping North Koreans from seeing,
first hand, the South's amazing progress), there is no
reason for further delays.
The real test,
however, will be the resumption of military talks aimed
at finally opening up a road and rail corridor between
North and South (a topic that was no doubt high on
Russian President Vladimir Putin's agenda during his
recent meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in
Vladivostok, given the economic benefits Moscow sees in
the opening of a direct transportation link into South
Korea). The North has thus far failed to honor its part
of the corridor bargain and has been even more reluctant
to engage the South in any security-related talks. Even
with these caveats, however, the North's current "sweet"
approach toward the South is welcomed and encouraging.
US-North Korea
Washington has rightly
linked progress on the North-South front to its own
willingness to re-engage the North, with a resumption of
inter-Korean dialogue being one of the reported
prerequisites behind Secretary of State Colin Powell's
agreement to hold a 15-minute informal chat with North
Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun in Brunei last
month. As a result of that meeting, Pyongyang now
appears set to welcome a high-level US visitor - most
likely assistant secretary of state James Kelly - in the
not-too-distant future. But, just when it seems the
North is becoming more agreeable, it looks as if
Washington has decided to reinstitute its own brand of
sweet-and-sour diplomacy.
According to reports
in the Washington press, John Bolton, undersecretary of
state for arms control and international security, plans
to give a "bellicose and threatening" speech about North
Korea during his visit to South Korea this week
(Wednesday through Friday), one that aggressively
denounces Pyongyang as an evil terrorist state and
reportedly threatens US withdrawal from the Agreed
Framework (which swaps a freeze in North Korean nuclear
activities for annual heavy-fuel-oil deliveries and the
eventual construction of less proliferation-prone
light-water reactors) - Bolton has been a longtime
critic of the agreement, even though President George W
Bush has repeatedly pledged that the United States will
honor it as long as Pyongyang continues to do the same.
In all likelihood, the speech will be toned down
prior to delivery, but much of its damage has already
been done (which was the likely intent of those who
leaked the speech in the first place). But one needs to
ask why a self-professed hawk like Bolton, who has
created more diplomatic problems than he has solved, is
going to South Korea in the first place, given the lack
of arms-control issues between Washington and Seoul.
As presidential politics heats up in the South,
almost anything an American politician says is likely to
be taken out of context or be seen as part of some sort
of conspiracy. Bolton's comments, if delivered as
planned, would certainly reinforce in the minds of many
in Seoul that Washington is indeed trying to undermine
North-South (as well as US-North Korean) dialogue, to
the detriment of South Korea's current ruling party and
its beleaguered president, Kim Dae-jung.
Why
anyone in Washington thinks it's a good idea to send
America's most undiplomatic diplomat to Seoul at this
sensitive juncture remains anyone's guess. How openly
antagonizing and insulting the North while feeding the
worst suspicions and accusations of Southern critics
serves US national interests is, quite frankly, beyond
this commentator's ability to comprehend.
Ralph A Cossa is president of the
Pacific Forum CSIS
(pacforum@hawaii.rr.com).
This article is used with permission.
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