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Roh-Bush summit: Strange
maneuvers
By Jaewoo Choo
SEOUL - Timing is everything.
Last week,
US President George W Bush announced a new way of
handling the North Korean nuclear case. He stressed that
he and his administration would rather concentrate on
preventing the North from further proliferation of its
long-range missiles and nuclear-related items than on
solving what goes on behind the scene in the nuclear
power plants and laboratories on its territory. It is a
new strategy known as a "two-track" approach. The abrupt
shift in the focus of Bush's North Korean strategy
certainly bewildered many here in South Korea. It made
us really think hard about the North's past deeds in
proliferation of weapons and other technology-related
efforts.
The most recent such incident was last
autumn when a North Korean vessel was stopped and
inspected by the Spanish navy for shipping long-range
missiles just off the coast of Yemen (see How to drag out the US-Korea talks,
April 23). Other than that, one can hardly remember the
last time the North was publicly convicted of such an
endeavor in the international scene. Rather, throughout
the 1990s, it was rather extensively involved in such
criminal activities as drug trafficking and trading in
counterfeit US dollar notes.
But what really
bewildered most of the South Korean public and observers
of Korean affairs was the timing of this change of tack
on Bush's part. It was made exactly a week prior to the
scheduled summit meeting between Bush and South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun.
It has become a
tradition, if not a rule, for a South Korean president
to pay a visit to the United States first before any
other states after being inaugurated into office. If a
new president is elected into the White House during his
term, as well, he is duly expected to pay a courtesy
call on the newly elected US president. On either
occasion, the visit will usually be treated as a formal
state visit, meaning one personally catered to by the US
president. In addition, the itinerary of the South
Korean president would include not only meetings with
key figures in the administration and cabinet but also
an address to Congress. The latter is usually carried
out when a newly elected Korean president makes his
first trip to the United States so as to present and
explain his vision for Korea during his term in office.
Despite the fact that the upcoming trip will be
his first to the United States as president, Roh's visit
is not being labeled a state visit. Rather it is being
dubbed an official visit, omitting an opportunity to
tell the American public how he is going to lead his
country for the next five years. Degradation of the
visit as well as omission of such an opportunity may
bear great implications themselves. One thing we can
suspect is that there lacks harmony between the two
presidents' visions and understanding of the way the
North Korean problem should be handled. The gap must
have widened with such an abrupt change in the US
strategy in approaching the North's problem.
Since the adoption of a two-track approach in
its policy toward North Korea, the Bush administration
has presented a flurry of facts and figures in respect
to developments in the North and its alleged activities
in the illegal drug and counterfeiting trades. First,
the Bush administration announced on Thursday that
intelligence analysts within the previous 48 hours had
seen increasing signs that North Korea had begun
reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods to provide plutonium
weapons. The next day, the South Korean government
confirmed the report by saying that its intelligence
also detected smoke coming out of the facilities, which
were supposed to remain inactive.
Almost three
weeks ago, a North Korean freighter was seized by
Australian forces for allegedly delivering US$50 million
in heroin (see North Korea: Hand in the cookie jar,
April 29). The ship, registered in the North Korean port
of Nampo but sailing under a flag of the Pacific island
nation of Tuvalu, has been cited as evidence of the
North Korean government's involvement in drug running,
amphetamine production and counterfeiting.
Adding to this charge, in Monday's morning
papers in South Korea, the office of US forces in Korea
revealed its findings on North Korea's above endeavors
in detail. The research findings were the result of
joint effort with South Korea's 21st Century Military
Research Institute. For the first time, specific numbers
were presented about the North's alleged activities.
It was reported that the North is exporting on
an annual basis $500 million worth of narcotics and $15
million to $20 million of US counterfeit notes. With
respect to its narcotics trafficking, the two
institutions claimed that the North ranks third in opium
exports and sixth in heroin in the world. What was much
more surprising was that they attributed the frequent
changes in prints and designs of US dollar notes to the
North's counterfeiting activity.
In addition, it
was claimed that in 2001 alone the North exported $580
million worth of intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs). Furthermore, the joint study estimated that the
North is in possession of 650-700 ICBMs. Such specific
figures have never before been made public in South
Korea. Even in the US, where reports on North Korea's
illegal and inhumane activities are published by so many
diplomacy- and intelligence-related agencies either on
annual or multi-year basis, never have such concrete and
specific numbers been stated.
Maybe early access
to information has driven Bush to adopt a new way of
approach to the North Korean problem ahead of the Roh
visit. On the other hand, perhaps he has something
different in mind. With his re-election schedule slowly
start to crystallize, he may need a new tactic so as not
to allow the North Korean issue to hinder his campaign
efforts.
If Bush does wish to handle the issue
of North Korea, then he will have to present a solid
plan explaining his strategy and tactics in handling
these matters. Otherwise, his intention and purposes of
a "two-track" approach could be very misleading. Bush's
decision to redeploy US forces within Korea and to keep
six stealth surveillance planes here, as well as to
extend the stay of those officers who have fulfilled
their duties in Korea for anther three months, may all
have their own implications.
All these decisions
tell us that the Bush administration is still in the
middle of hard thinking to figure out the next step in
its global strategy. With most of its aircraft carriers
stationed in the Persian Gulf area, it needs to keep
stealths on hand for the security of South Korea in
particular and of Northeast Asia in general. Its plan
for building a new international order in the Persian
Gulf region may not have been confirmed yet, as it still
cannot afford to give out orders of deployment to its
military. It may take another three months or more, it
seems, to figure out how many troops would be needed for
building a new order in and around Iraq.
Nonetheless, in the end, it is speculated that
Bush will, at least on the surface, proclaim that the
meeting with Roh an important one although follow-ups
and other measures will be left for working-level groups
of both countries. Such an announcement could, however,
be misleading, as the meeting between Bush and Roh is
scheduled for only a couple of hours this Wednesday.
Whether Roh's meeting the previous day with Vice
President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld will have any significant meaning remains to be
seen.
Given all the developments and changes in
Korea and the respective US stance toward the Korean
Peninsula prior to the summit meeting, Roh will
experience some difficulties in delivering his messages
to the three foremost hawkish characters or neo-realists
in the US administration in lieu of a relatively dovish
figure, Secretary of State Collin Powell, who is now in
the Middle East and will be in Europe during the
Roh-Bush summit.
Roh may return with many more
economic goodies than expected, as his trip is to focus
more on economic issues than political ones, according
to his itinerary. But otherwise he may feel more
headaches than he can blame on airsickness from the long
flights between Seoul and Washington.
Jaewoo Choo, PhD, is a research fellow
with the Trade Research Institute, Seoul. The opinions
expressed in this article are his own.
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